The Hidden Costs of Obesity You Can't Ignore | Helene Leeds & Penelope Popken DSH #660

To take care of yourself.

It seems like a really basic thing, but most people are just sitting around, they're on their phones, they're not really doing much proactively.

Like working out is really important.

Yeah.

It's also really hard when you're overweight and you're depressed.

It's really hard to just get yourself out of bed.

Like what like what are we supposed to tell people who can't even move their body out of bed?

Because that was me at one point, you know?

All right, guys, mother and daughter duo combo here today.

Penelope and Hylene, We're going to talk being overweight today, which is a big problem with all the Ozempic stuff going on, right?

Well, it's a huge problem.

Literally a huge problem.

75% of Americans are overweight.

Yeah.

42% are obese.

That's enormous.

We have a pandemic of obesity right now that is never been before in human history.

It's disturbing.

Then you've got a lot of celebrities promoting Ozempic body positivity right now

and that it's okay to be overweight.

When I was 320 pounds, I was told that it was okay to be overweight by my friends in school, by doctors and therapists.

And I remember being like, is this really healthy?

At one point in my journey, I was like, is this really healthy to be overweight?

It couldn't be.

And for so long, I thought it was okay.

I even would take photos of myself as 320 pounds thinking it was beautiful.

And then I realized how much it harms our health.

But nobody was really talking about that online.

They just show you all the positive sides of being overweight, but there are no positive sides of being overweight, only negative.

Yeah, I can't think of any positive.

And now Oprah is like telling people that it's okay and just take the drugs, which doesn't make sense to me.

Well, it's a very complex issue.

I grew up in an eating-disordered household, and my mom was constantly losing hundreds of pounds and all the disorders that are related to that.

So I understand the complexity of it.

It's not as simple as diet and exercise.

It's really complex.

And I think physicians feel like their hands are tied.

So Ozimpic is an easy solution for them because it works with their business model.

But it's not a quick fix.

And you have to be on that medication for the rest of your life.

And it costs somewhere between $1,000 and $1,800 a month.

And it's also not proven effective or safe for weight loss.

So we've got a lot of issues here that are compounding, not to mention the side effects.

And I don't think in less and until we get to the root of our lifestyle and why the weight came on in the first place, we're not really gonna see a huge shift.

Right.

I mean our grandparents weren't obese.

Hell no.

They were in good ass shape.

My grandparents were on a farm working every day.

They were muscular.

I don't think there was even obese people back then, were there?

100 years ago, there was no processed food.

Yeah, I can't think of any old person that was obese.

Most children are eating 70% of their diet as processed food.

Yeah, all the cereals, snacks.

Anything from a box, more or less, is going to be, unless it's very expensive and high quality, of course.

But the majority of people can't afford that.

Well, there's some organic food that are somewhat cheap, right?

Like vegetables, fruits, and stuff.

Well, yeah, that's the point.

That'd be ideal if people would learn how to cook.

Learn how to go to the grocery store and buy produce and do their best to eat what's in season, what's ripe, what's at your local farmer.

But that's just not

taught anymore, I don't think.

Cooking.

Well, doctors didn't take nutrition.

They took maybe a semester.

So they're not really going to teach you.

Your parents might have been too busy to show you.

Your schools certainly aren't going to teach you.

Definitely not.

School lunches are a joke.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Not your fault that you don't know, but it's also your responsibility to figure it out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot of misinformation in the food space.

Yeah.

Like this is good for you.

That's a superfood.

And people just follow it blindly.

And how do you know?

Like, should you be carnivore?

Should you be paleo?

Should you be whole 30?

Like, what's the truth?

Yeah.

So what was that diet that lost all the weight for you?

Well, it wasn't just a diet.

It was a combination of getting rid of all sugar and flour.

Like, that was really hard because I was massively addicted to sugar.

Like, I would hide pizza boxes and ice cream cans in my

closet.

I hid pizza boxes outside the front door in a trash can.

And when she left the house, I'd have the pizza guy on speed dial and have the pizza delivered right when she left because that's how addicted I was.

I would even walk down our hill, go to 7-Eleven, eat all the junk food, and then throw it up in the trash can just to get some of the candy wrappers back out of the trash can, bring them home, eat the rest, and then throw it in the trash can.

What?

Yeah.

Holy crap.

It's like an addict.

She stole money too.

I stole money from that.

I've done that.

I'm not going to lie.

I stole thousands.

Oh, I didn't do that much.

I would go on DoorDash and put her card in, and she'd be like, Penelope, what are all these charges?

Because that's how addicted I was to food.

To eating.

To eating.

I would take it.

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Take the bus to a restaurant to go eat food.

Holy crap.

Took a bus.

Well, I was really blindsided.

I mean, on the one side, you try to be a good parent and feed your kid healthy food.

And on the other side, they're at school and then they're overeating the stuff that you wouldn't give them.

And then all of a sudden, they're in the grips of addiction.

Yeah, so so you are confused why she's putting on all this weight because you're feeding her healthy behind the scenes.

She's got this addiction that she's hiding from you.

Yeah, and I think I, like many parents, are really blindsided

with what's happening with our kids and like where do you go for help?

Like she said her therapist didn't tell her to stop.

They asked me to stop talking about it.

Therapy had candy.

There was candy at therapy.

And she told you not to stop eating?

No, she was like, oh, it's fine.

You're fine.

You're healthy.

Because diet causes mental health issues too.

I know.

The doctors didn't even say I was overweight or unhealthy.

They didn't.

They didn't say a thing.

I had to go get blood work for a doctor to be like, hey, your triglycerides are high.

That's how, like, I had to actually do that in order for someone to say something.

No one was like, get your blood work done.

Crazy.

No one was like, oh, you're 320 pounds.

There might be something wrong with you.

No one said it.

I wonder if they're just nervous of just saying the wrong thing and then getting sued or something.

Yeah, they're afraid that they're going to be fat phobic.

Right.

But it's like, that's just the truth about health.

You could be saving someone's life.

Well, there's two bodies of research.

I have all these degrees in nutrition and nutritional psychology and one body of research says if you deprive people they're going to binge and purge they'll have that eating disorder could cause it and the other side there's this body of science that's also showing that the physiology of addiction like your body when it goes into addiction in your brain that's caused by flour and sugar and that's why overeaters anonymous which my mom was in my entire life i didn't know that was a thing it's an over it's a thing

i tried it i tried it but it didn't work for me but abstinence is no flour no sugar because it switches your brain into addiction so if you want to do one one thing today,

you could just stop eating flour and sugar and find other things to satisfy your hunger.

Right.

But, flour's in like all the bread, pasta, right?

Sugar's in everything.

Yeah, yeah.

But you asked me how I lost the weight, and it was getting rid of sugar and flour.

So, I had to read every label of everything I put in my body, which guess what?

It just left me with vegetables and fruit and protein.

That's it, super clean, like nothing processed, no seed oils, right?

None of that.

Exercise an hour a day, walk as much as I can, 10,000 steps.

That's how I lost the weight and kept it off and support I think support is key we're not meant to do this stuff in a silo yeah I had you as my but I rebelled against her for a really long time because I'd see her workout and I'd be like oh like I'm so jealous that I'm not you and so that almost made me want to eat more dang you know because like

what do I do with that feeling oh I'm gonna eat because that's how I feel wow but that's not the right answer yeah because she was so healthy it was kind of intimidating right so beautiful and I'm like 320 pounds depressed in my room with the freaking you know, windows blacked out and like just hiding under my blanket, vaping, like just massively addicted to my phone.

Yeah.

And then she's like so gorgeous and she's perfect, everyday, healthy.

Like I, it felt impossible to be there.

Like that felt so far away.

And I know people that are overweight, like that goal can feel so far away.

And you feel like hopeless, but there is hope.

I mean, you can do it.

But it's just, it takes so much discipline and consistency.

It doesn't even take willpower or motivation, but it takes consistency.

You just have to get up every day and actually work out.

And you said to me, was it last week or the week before, Mom, if I knew it would have tasted this good, I wouldn't have waited so long.

Because there is a way.

Like, I was a master chef.

Like, you can learn how to make healthy food taste amazing.

And what you want to not do is fall prey to the commoditization of health, which is where we are right now.

It's like the food companies are getting you young.

They're even suggesting that children age 12 start taking Ozempic.

What?

Why is that the first option?

Shouldn't the first option be exercise, eat right, you know, you know, start to train yourself in taking care of yourself?

Yeah.

Like when do we forget that our bodies are resilient and can heal themselves?

But the pill isn't the answer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember the old food pyramid.

I know there's a new one now, but the old one recommend dairy, grains, now all that stuff we find out years later is bad for you.

Especially dairy.

So now Pfizer is in 90% of cheese.

Did you see that?

No, that's terrible.

Yeah, so Pfizer puts an ingredient that's in 90% of the cheese in America.

That's shocking.

Yeah, so now I'm actually switching to raw cheese or local.

Yes.

I can't eat any mass-produced cheese because I don't know what's in that.

I've been making my own cheese out of chicken seeds,

pine nuts and almonds and pistachios.

That sounds amazing.

It's really fun.

That's cool.

How'd you do on Master Chef?

I mean, I didn't win.

I also didn't want to win.

Oh, you didn't want to win?

No, no.

I was in the cast.

You know, I got to to the final, the final cast members, but I didn't realize how long it would take me away from Penelope.

And I was really not happy with

being away from her.

I couldn't talk to her for like, what was it, six weeks or 12 weeks?

Holy crap.

I couldn't call her, text her, yeah.

12 weeks?

I thought that show was like a week.

Well, it looks like it.

No, but it's a lot longer.

Yeah, I like that show.

Gordon's got so many shows now.

Yeah.

Gordon yelled at her.

Oh, that's crazy.

He yelled at her.

He's fucking this time.

And then it's not funny.

And I was like, it actually is very funny.

But he does it for show.

He's not actually rich, right?

Because he seems like a nice dude.

He is really nice.

But he has a standard for excellence.

And I think we should all adopt that standard for excellence.

Yeah.

And it's really important to learn how to take care of yourself.

It seems like a really basic thing, but most people are just sitting around.

They're on their phones.

They're not really doing much proactively.

Like working out is really important.

Yeah.

It's also really hard when you're overweight and you're depressed.

It's really hard to just get yourself out of bed.

Like,

what are we supposed to tell people who can't even move their body out of bed?

Because that was me at one point, you know?

So I'm like, working out in general is just a mindset.

It's tough.

Like,

even me, I consider myself pretty healthy, but it's not something I really look forward to.

No, but you can look forward to it, believe it or not.

If you gamify it, right?

Yeah.

Gamify.

Or I do, I love the five-second rule where you just give yourself five seconds to get out of bed.

You say, okay, I can do anything for 60 seconds.

And then you go one, two, two, three, four, five.

And then you push yourself out of bed, like jolt yourself, throw your phone on the floor, get out of bed.

And then you're like, okay, I can do anything for 60 seconds.

I can do anything for 60 minutes.

I'm just going to go do this.

And then sometimes I'll even count down in my workout, like, okay, 60 more seconds.

And I'll tell myself that for an hour.

Wow.

And then I'm done with it.

And I'm like, oh, wow, I did it.

And I feel so accomplished because not only do I have endorphins running through me, but I'm like, I did it.

I did what I told myself I could.

And that builds so much confidence over time where you're like, okay, I can do it.

I can do it.

I can do it.

And the mindset stops being, I can't.

It starts being, I can.

In our program, we use it as an emotional resilience tool.

So for me, it's about emotional engagement.

And it's a great way for me just to work it out, like my emotions.

So for me, it's music, really loud music that motivates me.

And I just feel so, like, it's a cathartic experience.

So if I don't do it, Penelope's like, mom, you need to like go take a walk or something.

That's true.

You're so mean when you don't work out.

I'm mean when I don't work out.

No, I am too.

It's the same way.

Built up stress, right?

Yeah.

Got to relieve it somehow.

Especially women.

We have to relieve our stress because women are way more emotional than men.

So we have to find out.

Again, we have to find outlets other than men to yell at.

Yeah.

No, you got a good take on that because you guys went on Fresh and Fit and you actually agreed with a lot of the stuff they were saying, right?

Yeah,

which is rare for women on that show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's rare, but the thing is, what they're talking about is actually the truth.

They just say it in a way that sometimes makes people upset but it's everyone says the truth like when we say oh body positivity is you know that today's body positivity is toxic people get angry well why because it hurts people's feelings to tell people oh you're fat that's not mean that say that word isn't mean fat yeah but people today think that oh you can't believe you called them fat you know it's like okay you have to say now you have obesity they say you aren't obese or they say it's a disease yeah and it's not your fault and it's like well i don't believe it's a disease but they're now qualifying it as a disease.

Being fat?

Yes.

Well, obesity, because they want insurance to pay for obesity medication.

Oh.

Because right now, Novonordic, the Ozimpic company that makes Ozimpic, is on track to be one of the most successful drugs ever created.

So insurance doesn't cover it right now, but they're trying to diagnose it as a disease.

Or genetic predisposition.

Wow.

Yeah, speaking of genetics, I know you had a family history of that.

Yeah.

A lot of people place a lot of importance on that, but do you think that matters a a lot with the obesity genetics?

I definitely suffer from

the fear of my mom's destiny.

Today marks the day of 19 years of her death

and she died before she could know Penelope.

Wow.

Because you were only five months old when she died and on her death certificate was severe obesity.

And for me it's really a matter of life and death.

It's not about permissive parenting or pretending like it's positive to be obese.

I feel like her life was stolen by obesity and Penelope never got to know her grandmother.

And that's why we have, I've spent my life obsessing about health because I wanted to dodge the bullet.

And so you can imagine how shocked I was when my very own daughter was over 300 pounds.

Because I thought I knew all the answers.

I got a bachelor's and a master's degree in nutrition.

I studied food is medicine.

Like it's just been my total focus.

But

we've got to help as many people as we can to get back in the kitchen, to get real with their emotions,

and to make the changes that are required for a happy, healthy, free life.

Yeah.

No, go ahead.

Well, it's just within hand.

It's right here within reach.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think genetics definitely plays a role.

I'm not saying it doesn't, but people like to blame it as the only reason that they're fat.

I definitely have the fat gene.

I have to work really hard every day, but it's just part of my life because I know the destiny of what obesity causes.

The depression, the anxiety, the ostracism, the heart disease, the diabetes, all of the things.

I don't want to live a life like that.

Absolutely.

Yeah, 42% of people are obese right now.

Do you guys see this going up or down over the next few years?

I think it depends.

Right now, I see it going up.

Wow.

I think the food companies are in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, and I think everyone's winning except for the people who are obese.

They're paying.

Yeah.

And ozobic doesn't really benefit the people because it just makes them, like they stay overweight after they get off the drug.

If they can't live off of it because they can't afford a $20,000 drug every year, then when they get off of it, they end up gaining more weight back.

And so the business model isn't really made for them to succeed anyway.

It's made for Ozepic to succeed, but not the client.

And it's like that with, you know, even body positivity.

A body positivity benefits every industry except the person who's obese.

It benefits the pharmaceutical industry and the therapy industry.

And

it doesn't benefit the obese person.

They just die.

Four body positive influencers died a few months ago.

Crazy.

That's not a positive thing, but it's called body

positivity.

Yeah.

$4.3 trillion are spent every year in associated medical care costs, like direct costs associated with obesity and related diseases.

That is a lot of money.

Think about how else we could spend that money.

Or even how else we could spend $20,000 a year promoting things like maybe a script for healthy food or a script for an exercise program or some kind of other trend.

Like, why aren't we marketing that yeah it's nuts people just want a quick pill

laziness i don't know laziness they want do you think the government wants people to be weak yeah of course the weaker the people the sicker the people the more money that everyone else gets that are on the top right that control everything i do think the power is with the people

And I think that it's possible to turn it around.

But I think it's going to take an awakening.

Like wake up, take responsibility, responsibility, and do something about it.

Absolutely.

For the clients you guys are coaching, what percentage of them actually lose weight, you'd say?

All of them.

All of them?

Absolutely.

All of them.

Amazing results.

Absolutely.

So not one person has gained weight?

Well, I can't say they haven't gained weight.

Sometimes they give up on themselves.

Right.

And if they give up on themselves and they stop the program and they decide to go back to their ways, you know, that's their choice.

So in all honesty, you know, there have been some.

But our goal is to teach people how to live a life they love and that they're they're inspired to live and that means delicious abundant food that means exercise that is really inspiring

and that is community people who can really support each other in a way that's meaningful creative inspirational and all the things

it's a commitment

to your health community is important that's a yeah environment even for you it's a commitment for everyone who takes their health seriously

and it's really about that it's about health yeah weight loss is kind of a side effect

Yeah.

That's true.

So what is considered overweight, you guys say?

Like, is there a certain limit for each height you say?

Well, I think it depends on your body fat.

I don't necessarily adhere to the body mass index.

I know Penelope likes the BMI.

I like the BMI.

Everyone's like, the BMI is not good anymore.

I don't agree.

The BMI is a great tool.

Just like the waist-to-height ratio, the waist-to-hip ratio.

There's like a lot of different ways to calculate it.

I think body fat percentage is a good way to calculate it.

So what percent body fat would you say is overweight?

Over 30.

30.

Okay.

That's pretty high.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's some wiggle room there.

An ideal is around 26 for women.

Yeah, that would be ideal.

Yeah, women are higher than men, right?

On body fat percent.

Yeah, yeah.

But I would say over 30.

And I, you know, we've got a big, big issue that we're dealing with.

30 is high.

I don't know anyone above 30.

You guys were asking me for fat podcast casts before this, so I couldn't think of anyone.

Have you had any on the show above 30?

Yes, definitely.

And what'd they say?

They are a stand

for their weight.

Okay.

They say, you do you.

And I think that's the, that's, that's, we've fallen into a you do you mindset around weight, and that's a big problem.

Body positivity is like, I'm going to let you do you, and you're beautiful, and I'm going to support you no matter what.

And I'm like, why?

You are supporting self-suicide.

You are supporting someone slowly killing themselves.

And you're supporting someone having a food addiction.

I had friends supporting me doing that.

I'm not friends with them anymore because they were trying to kill me.

They were helping me kill kill myself and every day i say i killed my 140 pound self she's gone she's dead to me and every day i'm glad she's not there and i work out for her i work out to get rid of her because she is like a devil to me she's not me she's not my friend she's my enemy and i got rid of her and that's how people should look at obesity and their weight when they're overweight it's like i literally had someone on my back that's what that weight felt like yeah you felt like you were suffocating at night you said yeah

you remember at night time i couldn't breathe you had anxiety you were depressed, you had sleep apnea, you had PCOS.

Holy crap.

Yeah,

you had issues with your cholesterol.

I actually tried to commit suicide one time

when I was overweight.

Wow.

I went into the pill cabinet and I grabbed like a bunch of pills.

I put it in my hand, put them in my mouth, but they were all herbs.

They were all like herbs.

They were just like mushroom herbs.

No prescription drugs in the house.

But

I'm just saying, like, that's the mindset being overweight puts you in.

And when I lost all the weight naturally, I didn't have anxiety, depression, PCOS, none of it.

I was fine.

Wow.

I healed myself naturally.

And people don't believe they can do that anymore, but they can.

They totally can.

And we can even teach you how.

It's so simple.

It's not easy, but it's simple.

And that's just the truth about it.

Yeah.

And we're both working on it every day.

It's not like we've achieved something.

We're working on it every single day.

And so we're always like posting what we're doing, what we're eating, how we're moving.

and so that's just it's I don't I don't want to pretend like I've achieved something.

I may know a lot because I've been obsessed with it for 30 years, but we're all in this together.

Absolutely.

And

there's hope.

Yeah, there is.

I appreciate both of your openness for real.

And I think that's why you guys are succeeding because you're so open about your stories and people can relate.

Like you got, you were fat, you know, your mom was fat.

So that hits with people.

Yeah.

You're not just starting off skinny and then selling something.

No, my first Weight Watchers meeting was at age age five.

Wow.

My nickname was Fat So.

Oh, so you were fat too?

Yeah.

Yeah.

As a younger person, yeah.

Holy crap.

Even before Penelope, I was overweight.

You were a plus-size model.

I was a plus-size model in the 90s.

I got to see photos.

Plus-size models back then were not as fat as they are today.

Today, they're morbidly obese, but you were not morbidly obese.

No, I was the OG plus-size model.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, we got to throw up some pics.

You've lived a lot of lives.

I have.

I thought it was interesting.

That's true.

I used to be in the fashion industry, and I just got really really interested in health

because I wanted to avoid this thing that happened to my mom.

That suffering is real.

Yeah.

Did it happen to your dad, too?

No, my dad's a foodie.

I come from a family of foodies for sure.

My dad actually is pretty healthy.

Nice.

Yeah.

But he loves food.

We all love food.

I love food.

I'm not willing to sacrifice health for flavor.

Yeah.

Can you guys even eat out though with all the seed oils and stuff?

I mean, we have a few places we trust.

Okay.

But it's true.

That's a very important

thing, as well as organic food, because when they're inundating our food system now with herbicides and pesticides and fungicides and genetic modification and seed oils and bad salt, I mean, it's a recipe for a disaster.

I mean, you have to really get smart, wake up, and pay attention and start changing some things.

Because when you're buying food out, or you're eating food from a box,

you're asking for some problems.

Yeah, it's pretty nuts, too.

Even five-star restaurants use canola oil and stuff.

Like, I used to eat at STK.

They use canola oil.

And that's like a $100 meal.

And they're using canola oil.

That's not okay.

It's crazy.

So glad you found out.

Yeah, no, I ask every time now when I go.

Smart.

I mean, you have to, because that stuff adds up.

You don't want to change your DNA.

You don't.

And that's what canola oil is going to do over time.

Yep.

And did you guys see the microplastic thing that just came out?

Yes.

About the testicles.

It's crazy.

It's in every single testicle.

That's not okay.

100% of guys.

That's not okay.

Yeah, so that's going to your kids.

That's crazy, right?

20% of the kids today are obese.

That's nuts.

When I was a kid, it was nowhere close to that.

No.

There was maybe a few in the whole school and they got bullied, but 20% is insane.

That is creating lifelong customers for the myriad of diseases that result from having chronic obesity.

Yeah.

That is nuts.

We got to turn this ship around.

We have to.

Real food, real talk, real people.

Starts with education because I think they're trying to hide stuff like this.

They don't even teach you how to garden in school anymore.

Wow.

Only 25% of the population actually knows how to garden and has a garden.

I think home economics is now considered sexist.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And parents are usually been too busy to teach their kids.

So

we got to take it into our own hand.

Yeah.

Gardening's important.

Yeah, we have a little garden.

We have a little garden.

You're teaching me how to garden, which I'm really grateful for.

I'm glad you know how to garden.

Not everyone's mom knows how to garden.

Yeah, it's a good skill to have.

Thank you.

I don't trust many fruits if they're not organic.

Yeah, we just planted actually about a dozen fruit fruit trees on the landscape.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of those companies use pesticides and who knows what else, herbicides, and weird stuff.

So we actually are planning to go home and bake with our fresh blueberries.

Yeah, we have fresh blueberries right now ripe on the vine.

I am jealous.

It's exciting.

That sounds cool.

Yeah, we'll have to bring you back some.

Yeah, I'd love stuff.

Did you guys see that Jubilee episode with the fat people?

Yeah, fat versus skinny.

And Myron was on it.

I didn't see that one, but I saw the other one.

There's a girl, there's a girl version where they do girls fat versus skinny.

And that was fascinating to me because they show the girls are like, oh, well, it's okay to be overweight.

Like, I'm beautiful and I should be able to wear whatever I want and be whoever I want.

And it's like,

well, first of all, you can be who you want to be.

But lying to everyone, telling young girls that it's okay to be fat is not an accepting culture.

It's not a supportive place.

It's not something that's helping anyone.

And

when skinny people tell overweight people to lose weight, they get upset.

But in reality, it's because we care, I feel.

I do think when skinny people tell fat people to lose weight, obviously it's annoying.

But look, I think we all genuinely care about each other deep down inside, and we all want to help people.

I don't think shaming people and telling them, oh, you're ugly and you're fat is going to help.

But I think us, you know, going on walks with our friends, not feeding them junk food, not promoting body positivity and wearing bras, being 400 pounds on TikTok is going to help.

I think if we're just like, hey, let's go on a walk, hey, let's eat a salad, let's learn how to cook this vegetable together.

Yeah, that's helpful.

Let's go to a farmer's market and get local grown veggies together.

That's great because that's what we need to be doing.

We need to walk.

We need to eat vegetables.

We need to eat fruit.

We need to move way more and sit way less and consume way less.

Absolutely.

It's just shocking that it's become just so normal.

Like we're trying to normalize it.

I mean, when I go into Target and I see the advertisements or the covers of magazines or billboards and I see obese people, I just, I just,

I'm embarrassed to say, but I don't, I'm not really striving for that.

I don't like to see it.

It kind of pains me inside knowing the potential destiny of obesity.

For sure.

So I just don't understand why we would be normalizing it in the way that we are.

Especially to young girls.

Because all those young girls, the obesity rates in children are growing at rapid paces.

One in three children are obese.

Holy crap.

What what do you think is going to happen to all those little girls in high school now?

Like, they're all going to think it's okay to be obese.

I go on this, when you walk out on the street, even in California, you see an obese high school girl.

It's sad.

I was driving by a playground yesterday and I saw an obese kid.

And I was like, I don't remember a single kid in my third grade class that was obese.

Just me.

Really?

No, I mean, I definitely was.

I was obese.

I think I weighed 100 pounds in third grade, which is a lot.

Damn.

Yeah, I was 100 pounds in third grade.

I think I was in like seventh when I hit that.

We were kind of the first generation, I think, with processed foods.

Right.

Tang and Velveeta and Wonder Bread.

Yeah.

Grew up eating fruit roll-ups and all that shit.

Terrible.

Pop-tarts.

My food addiction started at six years old.

I would go to my friend's house and eat like a whole, you know, those large things of goldfish.

Yeah.

Those families.

I down a whole bottle.

The whole thing.

And the mom called her one day and was like, is your daughter okay?

She just had six slices of pizza and she's six.

Holy crap.

It started so young and the addiction just got worse as I got older.

Yeah, and people don't even know this, but if you have the motherfucker gene, you're allergic to all that.

MTHFR,

like all grains, all the enriched and fortified ones, which is in every single grain in America, pretty much, that's processed.

You're allergic.

That's why you're gaining so much weight.

I love knowing that.

You just taught me something.

Yeah, take that.

It's called a gene test.

Yeah.

Gene test.

Yeah.

Gary Brecca, 10X Health.

Shout out to them.

That was a game changer for me because I had it.

Wow.

Interesting.

Yeah.

But what's next for you guys?

Is there a course or community you're building right now?

Absolutely.

Step It Up.

So at Step It Up's on Instagram.

We also have our podcast on YouTube, Step It Up podcast.

And we're on a mission.

And

at first, when I, I've been doing this health thing for a long time, coaching people on how to get healthy, thousands of them.

over 60 countries.

And Penelope came to me after the first hundred pounds.

She's like, mom, we really got to help people.

She created the Step It Up program at age 11.

Wow.

And then she finally decided to follow it

a few years later.

And she came to me and I said, sure, let's do it.

Let's make it happen.

So we have the community, we have the program, we have our desire and passion and heart.

Because we know that the solution is through loving people, meeting them where they are, but not in the traditional...

body positive sense and educating them like you said on what the next step is

because for some people it's going to be too steep to go to sprouts you know like even though we eat a lot of sprouts and microgreens that's a big part of our life and diet that's gonna be too much for somebody who's just on a potato chip diet with pizza and you know milkshakes right would have been too much for you that's true and my first step was going from Burger King to Chipotle and then Chipotle to Chipotle bowls at home and it can be that simple going from a walk to maybe a light jog

yeah gradual steps right gradual steps and that's how you keep the weight off that's how I've kept the weight off and keep losing it

no looking back no looking back because you feel so good yeah your energy is so so abundant and positive and you wake up in the morning feeling like you can leap out of bed and like do anything.

Yeah.

Your social circles go up.

More men want to

date you.

Yeah.

Everything's good.

That's true.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That's true.

You probably get the craziest DMs.

We actually do.

Yeah.

Everything from marriage proposals to other things that are crass.

Yeah.

Marriage proposal over DM.

Happens all the time.

What?

Yeah.

They actually proposed to you in the store the other day.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

Someone proposed to you randomly.

Yes.

Yes.

Did you know them?

No.

Never met that person.

What?

Yeah.

That's weird.

What you said.

Thank you so much.

You know, but I'm not available.

You didn't keep the ring?

I always said, yeah.

Thank you.

And left.

I was kind of overwhelmed and

surprised, a little confused.

I don't think anyone would be surprised with that.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

You got to plan those out.

Know the person for years.

I mean, the hell is that guy doing?

That's some LA shit right there.

It is.

Only in California.

That's nuts.

Well, we'll link everything below.

Anything else you guys got?

Close off with?

I think the hope is really the most important thing is that there's absolutely hope out there and that your body will heal itself and don't be fooled and get real.

And if you're watching this, you can, you can, you can.

I will say it a million times.

You can achieve anything you put your mind to, which is,

it sounds like, oh, yeah, yeah, but like, no, you really can't.

If you truly believe that you can do it and you use that five-second rule and you one, two, three, four, five, jump out of bed and do it, I believe in you.

And I know you can do it.

Beautiful.

We'll close it out there, guys.

Check out the links below.

Thanks for watching.

See you guys tomorrow.