The Everyday Awesome Project
The Everyday Awesome Podcast is your mega dose of multivitamins for building your mental muscles, physical body and an empowered life. Your hosts Polly and Sam are on your dream team; lifelong coaches in business, health & fitness and human potential. They are on fire to ignite change in the lives they touch.
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The Everyday Awesome Project
61: Things We STOPPED Doing For Our Health Sake!
STOP! In the name of love..... and HEALTH! This week coaches Polly and Sam share the list of things they no longer do in order to protect and build their healthy bodies and minds.
They, like most of us, have spent years adding new routines to our lives, but what we found truly impactful was focusing on removing those habits that drained our health. From optimizing sleep, to re-evaluating our environmental exposures, changing up exercise, forging community connections, and dialing in nutrition, we share personal stories and insights that highlight the potential of cutting out what's not serving us.
Quality sleep is a cornerstone of our discussion, as we debunk the myth of sleep as a luxury and reveal how embracing natural biorhythms can revolutionize your health. We dive into the fascinating science behind sleep duration's effects on everything from fat loss to mood regulation, and we offer practical tips on managing light exposure for better rest. We also explore the significance of organic living, stressing the importance of choosing environmentally friendly products for ourselves and the planet, while sharing our experiences with exercise that promotes longevity and vitality.
In sharing our ongoing journey, we underscore the power of genuine community connections and evolving our relationship with food. By embracing a more relaxed approach to nutrition and letting go of restrictive eating habits, we encourage you to reflect on what truly serves your well-being. Our conversation invites you to engage in personal growth and self-awareness, prompting you to let go of what no longer benefits you. Together, let's move towards a fuller, healthier life as a community that thrives on shared experiences and continuous learning.
-Polly & Sam xoxo
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hey, superstars, welcome back polly here and sam. What's up, beautiful humans hey, we have a little interesting spin on today. You know, oftentimes we're suggesting like, hey, you should try this. Hey, we learned about this. Hey, you know, this is. You know, add this awesome thing to your life if you will. But we're gonna do a little spin and it's five things we stopped doing. Right, exactly, bringing it Exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah, right, it's things that we found that were not helpful for us in connection, direct connection to our health, so we stopped doing that. Yeah, and not the same things. You stopped doing different things than me and we're like, hey, we should have a convo about that. Maybe someone else wants to consider in their life eliminating some things.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, you know, sometimes it's like additive and then sometimes it's we need to reduce some things, right? We're putting things in our body, we're in environments we don't feel good around, whatever you know, whatever the toxin or the impact is on us, that's not helping us thrive, right? And one of the things I just want to give a little, I don't know. It's like the Surgeon General's warning or something. It's like whatever you want to call it. It's like so Samantha and I are not, you know, doctors and scientists and stuff like that. It's like these are things and some of these I can't even remember.
Polly Mertens:I've been doing it for so long. I don't even remember the science, but I'm like at the time I was like what the hell is that? I gotta go find out what that is and learned all this stuff. I'm like not doing that anymore, but I don't. You know, I'd have to dig really deep on all these. We're going to do an episode here soon on things that we are doing and things that we'd love for you guys to look at for yourself, but today, just listen from the place of wow, I wonder if that's Curiosity.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, yeah. So if you hear something, you're like oh, I didn't, I never even heard of that. Or oh, I've heard people talk about that, I wonder if I you know what that would look like for me.
Samantha Pruitt:So and to be clear, we made these decisions and took these things away from our life because we did do the research. We didn't, like someone told us it was the cool thing to do and we just ran around and the next day, like we were very curious humans and we also are very, you know, fired up about continuously exploring new science, new information. We do a lot of reading, we do a lot of research. So these are very informed decisions, but they're very personal decisions.
Samantha Pruitt:And how I look at this well, how I look at a lot of things but is when you're putting, when you're taking on new behaviors, habits, patterns or changing inputs, I see it as compound interest. Like you know, I make these changes and over time they stack, and now I'm getting interest on my investment in myself and, in particular, we're talking about health today. So I'm investing in my health and I'm going to get some returns, some interest, if you will. And then the reverse is taking things away that are not healthy, not working, are like those automatic auto drafts on your account that you barely know were happening and they're so annoying. You know they're the things that you subscribe to in the spur of a moment, or you spent money on things where it's like taking and depleting from that bank account that health wealth, slowly chipping away sneaky, sneaky, sneaky and over time creating a big deficit in your health and well being.
Polly Mertens:It's so funny that you went there, because that's where my mind went as you started to say this, like instantly I was like so in business, when I've consulted with businesses to have more profit, that's what you ideally want, is profit, your take home at the end of the day, right? So two ways to do that typically increase revenue so you have more profit growth, or you cut expenses, right. And so what we're talking about today is we're finding ways to cut expenses like how the expenses on your health, the expenses on your well being, the expenses that are taxing your body, your thrivingness something they're eating away at your life expectancy or your joy factor, your movability, your happiness, something. So let's trim some fat, cut some things out, yeah stop the bleeding, stop the drain.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, so let's tell them the categories first, so they know where we're going.
Samantha Pruitt:Sleep, environmental exposures, exercise or movement, community and connection yes. And then nutrition. Now, each of these we could talk about for days, but today is about us just sharing what we have taken away in these areas that we stopped doing. That had a big impact, a big positive impact, and started to rebuild that compounding wealth yeah.
Polly Mertens:Yeah. So please listen through what we're sharing with you. If we're like, is there, you don't have to do all of these. There's going to be probably more than 20. I don't know Between the two of us, we're going to have more than 20 or something. Maybe pick one, pick two, something that is like, oh, I could totally do that tomorrow, or oh, I should look into that and I should, I want to look into that because I'm doing that. Or maybe, you know, I heard something from Sam or Polly and like that could have a positive impact on my life. So, all right, let's start with sleep. And then it's like, wait, you're cutting sleep.
Samantha Pruitt:Oh hell, no Actually no, hell, no, and sleep is number one for me right now, but it has been for several years. So what I stopped doing was putting limits as to how much sleep or rest I could get. Yes, I literally stopped putting on an alarm clock and I leave my blinds half open and my window open because I like to sleep in a cool room which has other health benefits, fyi and so when the sun starts coming up or it starts getting light, I wake up, naturally as part of my body's natural biorhythms. But of course, if I have to be somewhere really early and get up in the dark to make that happen, or whatever there is occasions, I have to put an alarm clock in if I think that you know that's required, but it's very rare now and it's so fascinating.
Samantha Pruitt:Over the last couple of years I've been doing this, but really I I mean especially during menopause, my sleep was so disrupted, but now that I really feel like I've gotten back on top of quality sleep and I mean a lot of it so I sleep eight, eight and a half hours a night. Sometimes I could sleep nine hours, especially if I'm in a heavy training cycle. How much better I feel. But also I just feel liberated by this you know, and my body has started to self-regulate again.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, yeah. And your body naturally has a probably a wind down time, you know like it knows when it wants to go to sleep and you're allowing it to follow a natural circadian and this is different for everyone. You know we can do muscle testing on people to see you know what, what amount of level sleep you should get, and that's unique to each of us. There's bands. People say you know what seven to 10 or something like that. So somewhere in there we all fall. But people that are living in the five and a half, six and a half range I'm pretty sure you want to look at the science.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah the science about that. I mean the increase in mortality and disease rates for people that get six and a half hours of sleep versus eight and a half. So I just read a recent study about those two buckets. That's a big difference six and a half versus eight and a half. But I'm fascinated by brainwashing that happens during the nighttime, and brain health is one of the things I'm currently hot and interested in. So brainwashing your brain literally washes while you sleep. You're building muscle while you sleep. You're actually burning fat while you sleep. So there was a huge study that comparison six and a half hours versus the eight and a half hours and people who gained fat versus lost fat. And I mean we're talking a 50% difference and these are huge metrics. This is not like a five or a 10% difference in these groups. You know that kind of stuff just blows my mind. And then, of course, building muscle, which I care deeply about, and then mood regulation. I can be freaking moody, I mean.
Polly Mertens:so I love that something is helping me stabilize my mood and I know we live in a culture like the whole hustle and do so much. And the word busy if we could just like have people pause on that word for the next five years, like there is no busy in the language. Oh my gosh. And we give ourselves permission to sleep as a not as a luxury, but as a staple in our life, right, and I remember when I learned about what you're talking about, it was like are you kidding me? And talk about cutting expenses, like the expense of denying yourself sleep, and people who say, well, I don't get enough sleep during the week and then I catch up on the weekends. It's actually not true.
Samantha Pruitt:It doesn't work.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, there's no catching up on Right. So you feel more rested, but that's because you got what your body actually needed, right. So this denial of sleep is it's killing you, you know it's killing you faster.
Samantha Pruitt:Unfortunately, many of us were brought up that you know, if you slept a lot, you were lazy. In my house that was a thing. You know. We're growing kids and teenagers and if we slept in and we're just, you know, trying to develop and our sleeps just were whatever, we were lazy. I mean, you know this is part of society, labeling and ideas that are just completely ludicrous.
Samantha Pruitt:And that's so nice now to be like, and so so the science says and I'm a human and the science is about humans, so I probably fit into that category. It's really, um, yeah, imperative for me. What about you? What about?
Polly Mertens:I just want to double click and say just look into sleep and the benefit. It is right. So like we're, we, sam gave you stats and I hope that's enough to just like twinkle in your ear and go, oh wow, 50%. You know difference and fat loss and muscle building and mood and all that stuff. So for me, the things that it's hard to say cut out, but I would say ways that I look at it. So there was a great Huberman, andrew Huberman.
Polly Mertens:Huberman Lab did that podcast about ocular right and the impact of how much health our eyes have to do with our overall health. And so I'm wearing you can't see in this episode, but I've got my blue blockers on right, so screens or lights that, especially at night, I wear them as the sun goes down. I put my blue blockers on right. They're a type of glasses that protects your eyes from whatever the hell you know they'll give you the science. Just know there's things called blue blockers out there and they can be very attractive. You know, when they first came out they were kind of hideous, but now they just look like glasses. So blue blockers.
Polly Mertens:And then the other thing is I definitely dim the lights in my house If I could do candles in my house and get around, I probably would. I'm preparing the circadian for sleep time and stuff, and if we leave lights, especially fluorescents or these new LEDs and all this fake light on, it has an impact on your health. Just look into it. Don't take my word for it, but look into it. And so dimmer lights and um screens like I, I don't I avoid the screens late into the or, you know, after sunset, if you will, and in the morning again, there's so much science in these areas.
Samantha Pruitt:We're just bringing this to the human listening's awareness, yeah, that these might be some of the things that they should consider if they care about their health. Yeah, which everybody does. Yeah, whether they pretend they don't or not really they do.
Polly Mertens:And this is where we should insert also. So you know, you and I have come up by these things. We didn't do all this last year.
Samantha Pruitt:No, or all at once. All at once.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, so you know, I just started wearing the blue blockers and cutting the lights out of my house. In the last year and a half, since I watched that Huberman episode, I was like this is crazy, how impactful this is. Oh my God, like I'm getting those damn things Right. I didn't know that 15 years ago, whatever, when I did other things Right. So by all means, do not get overwhelmed by these ideas.
Samantha Pruitt:Get inspiration, get like, hey, these are some things. Maybe I could do that, this right now, and I could buy a little pair of blue blocker glasses and whatever you know compounding interest, start with one thing for sure, for sure all right.
Samantha Pruitt:Next category environmental exposures. I mean, I just had one big recently and it was about microplastics. And it's not that I didn't know that plastic was a problem for the environment and for humans on some levels, but like to what degree and in particular, what kind of? Pushed me over the edge to make significant changes in my daily routine around plastics was learning about the blood brain barrier, which I know about, the gut brain access and all of these things. But the blood brain barrier being so, stuff comes into our gut.
Samantha Pruitt:Plastics come into our gut because we're consuming water, foods et cetera. Plastic exposure is there and then it's traveling through your blood system up into your brain. And since I'm really fascinated with brain health right now, and to learn that there's all this research and studies and science showing how much of these microplastics are floating around in your brain, and look at the significant rise we have in dementia disease, all these you know Alzheimer's, everything it's through the freaking roof. There's a direct correlation and just the thought I got a visual image of microplastics floating around in my brain was like too much, can't do it, yeah, must stop. So what?
Polly Mertens:does? What do they suggest? Or what have you at least taken on? Or what, what? What's one way that you can get microplastics out? Do they have ideas for that? What did you hear?
Samantha Pruitt:yeah, you know, the reusable plastic bottles are probably the biggest culprit, but black plastics, anything that's made out of black plastic, is the worst. I thought that was super fascinating and I went through my utensil drawer, for example, like spatulas and things, and I had a couple of black spatulas, reusable plastic or anything that you put in the microwave. Colored plastic and black plastic is the worst, but so many of these plastics are just not meant to be heated period.
Samantha Pruitt:See, I didn't even know the black plastics, you're blown off the bucket Black and reheating or heating of the plastics, so anything that you're drinking, hot liquids, hot foods, I'm telling you. So then I went and did a little more research because I was like what else? Cancer also, by the way. It's a big driver of cancers and specifically it damages your DNA and your cells and increases tumor growth.
Polly Mertens:Wow, well, you know one of the things I just want to double click on with the plastics, let's say so. I got rid of all of the to-go container kind of things or like when you have leftovers. You know, I replaced all of my leftover containers from plastic Ziplocs to all glass, right, so that's one of them. I don't reheat food and if I have a TV dinner or frozen something, never heat anything that's going into your body. If it has a plastic container, whatever, like, get it out of that container, put it into a bowl glass ceramic something, yeah.
Polly Mertens:so yeah, right on, right on.
Samantha Pruitt:I mean, it's a big gut microbiome disruptor. And then the other thing that I'm fascinated about and have been studying is the metabolism and specifically mitochondria. So mitochondria is the energy cells of the human body. Literally, they generate energy for every single body function, including your brain, and the plastic damages the mitochondria. Here I am working hard to generate more and more robust mitochondria so these working cells can build muscle and bone and I can be healthier and I can fitness and whatever. And then at the same time I'm basically doing this to them. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Polly Mertens:Right on. So environmental, I'm just going to blow these out. But if you hear one that resonates for you or you're like, oh, I didn't even know what that was, I would just say, look into it. Right? So I'm a big fan. I remember being my eyes opened many years ago when I went organic, Right? So the food I put in my body is as much organic as possible. What I learned about all of that shenanigans. And then I was surprised going to a friend's house and like their hand soap and their shampoos and, you know, hand lotions and stuff were organic. I was like why are they doing all this organic like on their body? And I was like, oh for God's sake, like your, you know, your body's one of your biggest organs.
Samantha Pruitt:So your skin is the biggest organ of the body. Yeah, so aside yeah.
Polly Mertens:So aside from so, what we're talking about in environmental, so it's like things that you can breathe in, right. So like what are you inhaling the environmental smells or things that you're around, things that you put on your skin? It's not going into your body like orally, but it's going in topically, right Eyes, you know, hair shampoo, all that stuff. So things that I would lump into here, and you see these more and more. It's really great. You see these more and more. On bottles they say like no parabens, right? No SLS, sodium lauryl sulfate A, because I'm a huge animal lover. They're cutting down forests in you know, beautiful places where orangutans live. For SLS, you know, and you'd be surprised, aware of that is and what it does to the body, not only the planet.
Polly Mertens:So just take SLS perfumes and like added chemicals and dyes and scents, dryer sheets, like what do you need dryer sheets for? You know, especially detergents that have a lot of perfumes or dyes in them. So my detergents that have a lot of perfumes or dyes in them. So my detergents, my hand soaps, my lotions, my dishwashing detergents, I try to get free and clear, you know, like no extra smelly stuff because I don't know what all is in it and then find good brands.
Polly Mertens:You know, if you have a brand that you believe in, right, like a Dr Brommer's or Seventh Generation, or just, when you can find a good brand, then you can buy like any of their stuff, right, it's like, oh, seventh generation, I can buy their dish soap, I can buy their laundry detergent, because I know what this company's doing, right, um, for breeze air sprays, you know. Scented candlely thing, you know just. You know, just, notice all those things are being absorbed in in some way. Right, maybe you're not consuming it in your mouth, but you're absorbing it. So those are the ones I wanted to say for environmental.
Samantha Pruitt:Yeah.
Polly Mertens:There's a lot there. There's a lot there, yeah, and again.
Samantha Pruitt:You didn't overnight throw everything in your house out and move to a new house. These are gradual progressions.
Polly Mertens:Well, sls, I learned about just three know, just three years ago, four years ago, when I, you know, I get notifications about animal rights things and they're like, you know, save the chimps in Borneo, or something. I'm like, what the hell, what's going on with the chimps in Borneo? I'm like, oh my God, these babies and the orangutans are just like these mothers, are starving and walking in just you know, fields that have just been decimated.
Polly Mertens:I'm like what's going on? So I learned all about SLS sodium lauryl sulfate and I was like unbelievable. And then I started looking at every back of the label and SLS is even in brands that I thought like Meyers. I used to appreciate Meyers. I was like, oh, I can get that at Target or whatever. And I was like sodium lauryl sulfate it's so obvious, it's so fast to see. It's the second ingredient usually in a lot of products that you even can think of, but not that you know you can have a lot of good things. It's like, oh, no parabens, no treated on animals or whatever. But then it's got SLS and it's like, okay, got to, you know, but I didn't know about that five years ago, ten years ago.
Polly Mertens:You know and learning about parabens and other things that, just you know, suppress female hormones and stuff like that.
Samantha Pruitt:So hormonal disruption, dude, don't we know it All right.
Polly Mertens:Number three exercise or movement yes, and it's hard to say like well, we stopped, what did we stop you? And I stopped moving. Wait a minute, what are we talking about here? Nope.
Samantha Pruitt:But I stopped focusing on zone two. I would call it specifically, which is all the rage right now and everybody's like zone two, zone two, and I'm like people, just you wait, that'll catch up to you.
Samantha Pruitt:But I have a experience of many years of doing endurance and ultra endurance and watching my own body I am the end of one experiment called Sam Pruitt what all's going on and I know how my body composition has changed over the years, how my performance has changed, how I feel, all of those things. And so for me, the last couple of years it's been a struggle because I still love endurance, racing and events and training for those things. But finding a balance where I am not just doing all this long, slow distance, because ultimately I do know, especially for the aging female and really male body but I'll speak for myself, aging female body that it is not the best for us. Yeah, Great, I have great cardiovascular fitness, you know low heart rate, low blood pressure, low cholesterol, all the things Great.
Samantha Pruitt:But that's not the only health metric I care about or that I feel people should care about. Yeah, I like being strong, I like having muscle, I like the quality of my connective tissue and my bones to be strong and resilient and, additionally, I like to have mobility in my body. So continuing to do that long, repetitive, slow zone two work ultimately is not good for me, and so now I do a variety of things. The more variety the better. Higher intensity, lower intensity, et cetera.
Polly Mertens:I was going to say, define zone two for us what?
Samantha Pruitt:is zone two. Zone two is that lower heart rate cardio that everybody just loves to do. So you get out there and basically you are able to walk or run or hike or whatever your sport is, ride your bike, have some conversation, but be a little bit breathy, and you can do it for a very long time. It's a sustainable cardiovascular fitness.
Samantha Pruitt:You know the person that does the spin class every day or the treadmill every day or whatever they think, and they've been doing it for years. Whatever they think they and they've been doing it for years and when you're training for long distance or even you know running races and you know this, you've got to put your time in and that has to be something that's in your bank, but it isn't the only thing that should be in your bank. It's like filling your bank account with pennies. Why the hell wouldn't I put quarters in there and dollars in there? Why would I put $100 bills in there if I could? It's true.
Polly Mertens:That's a good way of looking at it. Yeah, and I was just going to say cardio on the treadmill. You know, I gave up. That's what you gave up, yeah, cardio on the treadmill a long, long time ago.
Samantha Pruitt:But I would agree.
Polly Mertens:You know I think, well, I also stopped running on streets. You know that pounding pavement and stuff like that, Just anything that involves too much pounding, if you will like that Dirt is better, it's not great, but you know, all that pounding on streets it's not good for the knees, anybody that knows long-distance runners on anyway. So stopping that. And then I would say also the, like you said, yeah, the cardio for cardio's sake. Like you know, I had high cardio in my 20s or 30s and I was heavier and, I would say, less in shape than I am now.
Samantha Pruitt:Right, well, back to science Body composition. Back to science. Science I'm thrilled to be part of the fact I'm still alive and science is happening in these areas and like leaps and bounds of information is being not only studied, invested in significantly and studied, but like, shared, publicly shared. You know, thank God for books and podcasts and all these things, but the science is there that that we used to do it because we were like get in the fat burning zone, you're burning fat. Woo're gonna burn more fat, gonna lose more weight. This is complete bullshit. Seriously, we were sold the biggest pile of bullshit. Can you believe that all those magazines were wrong? Pauline?
Polly Mertens:they were wrong magazines yeah, yeah, we didn't know what we didn't know, you know, and here we are, jane Fonda-ing our way to you know, a big midriff or just like, not flab, but just like. Yeah, you know, it was fun. I mean, there were. I enjoyed some of the. I can think of some of the like let's call it zone two classes. I used to do you know and I was like oh, but I used to do you know and I was like oh, but you can do those same classes, believe me.
Samantha Pruitt:You go to a group class, I go to a group class. We fricking do we throw down in cardio. I mean, the shit is gone. Today's workout was seven minutes. Okay, now we lifted weights, we did all these other things before. What's in the cardio part of the workout was seven minutes. You're like seven minutes. We were hanging on by our fingernails Okay, we're hanging on by a thread to get this thing done, dang dude. And it was so damn fun, by the way. Yeah, but it was balls to the wall. That is also cardio.
Samantha Pruitt:It's a different kind of cardio that's all right.
Polly Mertens:All right, we can go into the. What we want to do, that's great. So let's, so, let's, let's stay with, uh, giving up the zone two, yeah, as a predominant part of your workouts.
Samantha Pruitt:let's say that, yeah yeah, okay, next category community and connection again we're into stopping community.
Polly Mertens:Is that what we're saying today? We're anti-connection, anti-connection. Stop your connection. You know what I stopped doing, you know what I stopped doing.
Samantha Pruitt:You know what I stopped doing. What's that? Waiting to be invited yes, right Invited to show up or participate or speak up. I stopped doing that. Nobody needs to invite me. I show up, I do the thing. I try the new thing. I open my mouth, I say what I think up, I do the thing, I try the new thing. I open my mouth, I say what I think and I fully participate in life daily and it feels damn good. Nobody needs to invite me to that party called life. It's my life.
Polly Mertens:Well, it sounds like to create community, create connection, you had to stop or let go of waiting, being silent, you know, hoping that it just creates itself. It's like, oh no, got it, you know. So so stop freaking, waiting like, do it, act on it, create it yourself, right?
Samantha Pruitt:yeah, totally love it or co-create with friends or whatever, like figure it out but and so how is life different now?
Polly Mertens:so, like, what is the benefit you're seeing? Like your payoff, your return on investment? What do you, what do you experience out of that?
Samantha Pruitt:Well, I, definitely this whole thing. People get FOMO. What the hell is that? By the way, if you want to do something, do it. You're missing out on what Aren't you in charge of doing the thing? Like that whole thing. It just fascinates me. But, um, I mean, I also don't do things I don't want to do. So it isn't like I run around and have to be at all the things. I mean I very much don't. But if I want to actively participate in whatever the heck the thing is, I show up to the thing. I. That's just. It's just that simple, I guess.
Polly Mertens:I don't hold back. Well, I like in there what you said too, and I'll kind of parlay that into mine. So you, you stop saying yes to things that don't feel good. Also, you're like, uh, don't want to do this anymore, I want to do this Right.
Samantha Pruitt:And so you stopped saying I've done that for a long time. Yeah, yeah, this isn't this isn't new.
Polly Mertens:This is a good muscle.
Samantha Pruitt:The other thing is kind of a new thing, yeah, yeah.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, so mine I would say is is stop being in groups or circles or community or places where it didn't feel good.
Polly Mertens:Like especially, like you know, I'm up for growth, like that's just the trajectory of my life, expanding who I am, the consciousness that I am, the things that I'm up to. It's like how can I be stopping or stepping out of, stopping being in the circles or around the people that kind of feel like okay is okay. I'm like I'm not okay with okay. I'm up for extraordinary. I'm up for extraordinary, I'm up for remarkable Settlers. Settlers, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Polly Mertens:Girl you ain't no settler and at times there is a lack of community, as I am in between right.
Samantha Pruitt:That's interesting.
Polly Mertens:But I would rather be in between than in a connection or a community where I felt like I wasn't fully expressed. I wasn't fully expressed, I wasn't fully alive, I wasn't growing with people, and you know a better human being around these people, if you will.
Samantha Pruitt:That's such a good one. That is such a good one because I can hear people saying in their mind but you know, if I don't go hang out with those people on Friday night, who will I hang out with? Well, maybe yourself Friday night. Who will I hang out with? Well, maybe yourself. And also, if you don't make space for the new there's no space for the new.
Polly Mertens:There you go, there you go. You never know. You never know what's around the next bend right.
Samantha Pruitt:Cool, all right. Well, I mean it's nutrition, and we really didn't want to talk about nutrition.
Polly Mertens:Because there's so much I just can't.
Samantha Pruitt:There's a lot we have stopped, a lot we could go into, so I have a longer list started around nutrition. So for me it's been like it was the tipping point and then the catalyst for every. Yeah, you know it's like the foundation for me, in terms of me even knowing that health was a thing and I had some control over it. The amount of things you had to stop started around nutrition. So there's like so many things, but what do you? What do you feel?
Polly Mertens:about with nutrition. Well, and here's you know, and this is everybody's unique right, and so and again, as we said, these aren't things that I stopped, all of them at the same time right it's been an evolution.
Polly Mertens:I would say one of the first things. And you said, well, they all kind of fall under this. I was like, well, maybe, but as I got into the world of opening my eyes to organic food, right, I was like, oh okay, organics, you know like, stop pesticides. Organic food right, I was like, oh okay, organics, you know like, stop pesticides. Let's just call it that. Like, I stopped eating foods with pesticides and GMO and all that stuff. And then I just looked at, well, I'm a high quality being. You know I realized how food, that the way things are raised, has an energetic transfer into us, you know. So I would just say, and cheap, it was like, and it fell into low quality. I just was like I can't be putting that in this body. I care too much for thriving and feeling good. Now, that's not to say I'm perfect. You know there's times I eat. You know I love a good French fry, you know stuff like that, but it's not, you know, it's not a big portion of it like that, but it's not.
Samantha Pruitt:You know it's not a big portion, but you probably eat a real potato, cooked appropriately and grown in the ground and all of that stuff. And I've seen you eat really high quality chocolate like a fancy ass chocolate girl yeah I mean if you're gonna put the yes, so we're not judging food is good or bad. You're saying that my standard is to put high quality in.
Polly Mertens:I am a Maserati, yeah like I, even as I look at restaurants, right Like so there's taco joints that I used to go to in my town. It's like I love a good taco right, I still love a good taco but I look at how it's prepared or what they're. You know I, just you can dissect your restaurant. You know, like what level of quality you think they're buying their ingredients, and that became a factor for me. I stopped allowing low quality food into my life. So that's one of them. How about you? You share one and I'll share.
Samantha Pruitt:Well, since this is about stop doing, I mean over the course of this journey to health and well-being for myself and I mean mental and physical there were a lot of foods I had to eliminate because I have food allergies and I have an autoimmune disorder.
Samantha Pruitt:But that aside, I would say and everybody who possibly has some reactions to food should look into it so there's that kind of obvious thing of like if you put something in your mouth and then you notice you don't feel good or you get a rash or you get bloating or you get diarrhea or some, there is a reaction. I just can't say enough how important it is to pay attention to that and then do your own personal end of one experiment, figuring that piece out right. But for me, around nutrition, I'd say the biggest thing I stopped doing is probably recently is more around like my relationship to food and less about a particular food. Relationship to food and less about a particular food. So having less judgment around the food and less um Like is it a good food or a bad food, like putting it into a category and things of that nature. So it's more around like how my relationship to food has gotten, I'd say, maybe more relaxed and less judgmental, less strict.
Samantha Pruitt:Restrictive, yeah it wasn't doing me any good to put myself in and I got a little extreme for a while, especially trying to counter all of these food allergies and figure stuff out and these health issues that I had. So you're kind of forced to do some restrictive things. But then, you know, it started to get away from me. I would say, you know, and I would really be very judgmental about the quality of the food and all of these kind of things and that wasn't serving me.
Polly Mertens:So I nice, nice, right, yeah, and it's like for you eating in and out.
Samantha Pruitt:Now I mean protein style. I go eating in and out. I don't go, well you know. So that's just my relationship to food and feeling different about how I do nutrition.
Polly Mertens:Moving forward yeah, I'll say one thing from a you know this is from my work in hypnotherapy and coaching and mindset and stuff like that is, if you're going to eat something and you are telling yourself I shouldn't eat that thing, it's not going to serve you. If you're going to eat something, align with it and eat it and be like my body can consume this, I'm OK. Right, it's the disharmony, the disalignment, the eating it when you shouldn't, right.
Samantha Pruitt:I was making myself crazy in the grocery store. I was spending too much time in the grocery store debating what to buy and reading all the labels and walking around. I'm like what in the hell is going on? And I was literally would put stuff in my cart and then take it out, put stuff in my cart and then take it out.
Polly Mertens:I'm like, okay, stop, okay, stop Too much.
Samantha Pruitt:Isn't that fascinating.
Polly Mertens:The standard's got a little too extreme. It sounds like, or you know you just want to be comfortable with shatter.
Polly Mertens:Yeah Well, I think you had a couple. I'm going to just throw out a few that over the years. So that first one low quality food. You know that was an evolution, I would say, and some of the things that it's been a long time. But like soda, you know, just knowing, especially diet soda, you guys, the chemicals that are in soda, not only these days but many years ago, like your body just isn't good with it, especially diet soda, it's actually fat producing. So look into that for yourself.
Polly Mertens:Whatever, I'm not a pasta girl like you know. It just oh, I love me a good pasta, I know. I know I used to eat mac and cheese and and all kinds of pastas, but I just looked at like it just doesn't. I look at I go, it just doesn't have enough nutrition for me. I do, I do eat pasta, I'm not like I never do, but I I definitely don't buy it. Um, because I attend towards and some of these things are, uh, let's say, I avoid, I don't eliminate. Yeah, you know so for me. Yeah, I am a hard stop with an animal right. So I don't eat a cow, I don't eat a chicken. So there are a couple hard stops, but most things are I avoid. So if I can't avoid it then I will, but I avoid it. If I so, like gluten, you know, like you said, you've definitely eliminate, yeah, that's a, that's a hard stop for you. Mine is, you know, working with my naturopath and he's like, yeah, you should look at that gluten thing. And I was like I don't think I have, you know, gluten thing. And yeah, like I feel so much better, like just the lack of bloating and stuff like that. So gluten, and that includes soy sauce, you know. So I get tamari instead of soy sauce because of the gluten. And then so a couple of these are funny, like trail mix.
Polly Mertens:I was so overeating. I went to a nutritionist one time and I was like you know, how do you feel, you know, just working on some things, and she's like you know, track your food Right. And so I, you know, as a vegetarian, getting a lot of proteins, like nuts and seeds and stuff like that, so I just eat these gobs and gobs of trail mix. And I was and she's like you know, you don't want to look at how much trail mix you're eating? And I was like you're a squirrel. Oh, I hadn't really, you know. I mean. So I still eat nuts and seeds and stuff, but I don't, you know, do as much trail mix as a part of my diet anymore, and that was because I just felt so heavy in my gut too, like it. Just, you know, she's like you know, she just taught me about how nuts and things break down and how harder they are to digest and stuff like that, and so there's ways that you can work with that. You know sprouting your nuts and all sorts of things.
Polly Mertens:But and then I think, well, you have been for longer, but alcohol, you know. So I did two rounds of 75 hard, which is a great uh, it's like a 75 days of a program that uh has you cut, cut out, stop things. And so it was no alcohol, no sugar and, you know, exercise different things, whatever. So those two 75 rounds not in a row, but in one year I did it twice. It just was like alcohol. It.
Samantha Pruitt:It's not it's so interesting because I'm not totally alcohol free and sometimes I do partake in a cocktail, but almost inevitably I do not like how I feel the next day, even one drink. And so if I'm in structured training, I'm very diligent about it because I got a lot of work to get up to the next day and I also have to recover from today, my work workload, my physical workload, et cetera, right. And then when I'm not training I start to get more relaxed and very quickly I'm like, oh, I'm having a cocktail and then I might have a couple of this week or whatever. And I'm like that's so fascinating to me just as an observation, without like judgment, but like, hey, that's interesting how easy that type of behavior I'm just going to. We're just using alcohol as an example. But it can be. Anything right Can sort of get away from you If you don't have a sense of purpose around. What am I putting in my mouth and what kind of results do I expect to get out of it?
Polly Mertens:And I would add to that too, you know the social expectations like. It's socially like okay, you know, have a glass of wine at night and stuff like that, and so I just was lazy about it. You know, just like. And on the daily, you know just like, come home, relax, have a beer, glass of wine, whatever you know. And as I look back, I'm like man, there were so many years of just kind of lazy not alcoholic, but just yeah, adding and I look at it as a toxic my skin, like I go to an esthetician, and my acne so I had, you know, acne as an adult, young adult and through my 40s. And now if I drink, I will have a breakup.
Polly Mertens:And it's like because of the toxins. You know, the body's toxins. I'm like wow, super apparent to me, because your skin tells you how your body's doing so. Number one, so the toxicity. I was like damn. And then number two is, oh, my God, my Fitbit does not lie about sleep, like you said. You know, I thought, oh, if I was drinking on the weekend, you know, yeah, okay, my sleep would be dysregulated, but, like you said, like, oh, I'll have one, you know that cocktail or something in the night, even if it's earlier, sleep is always jacked. Oh, and I was like whoa, especially as you and I were going through the menopausal. So I was doing that.
Polly Mertens:And then experimenting with, you know, I was having low protein at night, you know, falling into hot flashes also caused by glycemic drops, and then adding alcohol. I was like what the hell is going on? So eliminating for 75 days and then doing it for the second, like I broke the habit, I just broke the relationship I had with it completely. It was like and now do I want to add it back in? And what does that look like? And why would I? And as I did it a little bit A, seeing the breakouts, you know, acne on my skin dysregulation in my sleep, which is such a priority to me, and we haven't gone enough into the science of the importance of sleep. But, knowing all of those reasons why it's like you're just carving off you know time of your life, and I was like you know, it's so interesting the way we're talking about these things, so we're talking about stopping them.
Samantha Pruitt:It's like and especially as we're talking about alcohol, it's like breaking up with a bad boyfriend right, boyfriend Right. So oh, I know this or a girlfriend or partner, whatever. I know this relationship isn't good for me. It's not horrible, I'm settling, yeah.
Polly Mertens:Yeah, it should go. It's not really good for me.
Samantha Pruitt:but right, and then when you break up with said individual, you're like, okay, there's this discomfort, right Of the breakup, that we all go through that emotional birth transition. And then we come out the other side and we're like what in the hell were we thinking? Who is it what? We're both kind of shocked, right, how we got into these and all of these things we're talking about, all of these things are just kind of is it good enough for us?
Polly Mertens:to continue Settling Exactly.
Samantha Pruitt:Settling.
Polly Mertens:One last one I want to just throw in here and this is for everybody you know, because I've been on for the last three or four years a super gut health you know kick and doing a lot of stuff in that world and I just want to throw out there preservatives, preservatives, preservatives, so food that.
Polly Mertens:So that's how I judge my trips around the grocery store is you know things with, as I think, as few, shelf life, like like shelf life, forget it. You know, like shelf life is killing your gut. So it's the antithesis of a healthy gut is things that preserve the food are beating up your gut. So just look into preservatives if that's something that you care about or want to know more about. I was like holy F, okay, good to know, good to know, and I hope that, in the spirit of all this, I love how you said towards the end, it's like breaking up with a boyfriend that you knew you should have broken up with, or whatever.
Polly Mertens:Because it's like these things should, should go, and it's liberating. It's not like, oh, I stopped doing that and I miss it and oh, my life is worse. It's like, no, you'll feel better. Right, it's things that will improve the quality of your life yeah, totally, totally so what's?
Samantha Pruitt:our one thing. What's our one thing today? I mean that kind of is it landing the plane there? It's like, literally are you settling? Is there something? Pick anything that we talked about today, or pick something that we didn't talk about, that you know has been on your radar, that you need to break up with. Okay, the Dear John letter is coming Right, because you know it. We all know ourselves. We do know ourselves, no matter how much in denial we might be at moments, we truly have awareness about ourselves and if something is no longer working, it's time to say goodbye, and I want to invite anybody listening to this, please.
Polly Mertens:We are so open. Like Samantha and I are constantly consuming information and knowledge and listening to things, but there's things that aren't on our radar.
Samantha Pruitt:Send it our way.
Polly Mertens:What could be on our radar that you've stopped.
Samantha Pruitt:You're like Samantha you didn't mention. It's got to be science-based, though. Don't give us some harebrained crazy idea. Okay, because we grew up in that era where you read those trashy magazines and every 10 minutes. It was a new news, not a trend. Yeah, we're not talking about that Real science here. People yeah.
Polly Mertens:Bring it Improving longevity, improving happiness, mindset, mood, any of that stuff, fitness, mobility, you know. So let us know what you found, that you stopped or you added or whatever, like we're totally open. So we'd love to have you know collaboration on this. Because we're open, we want to hear more, you know.
Samantha Pruitt:Oh, yeah, we want to keep evolving. Good stuff, good stuff.
Polly Mertens:All right. What do we want to remind them as we wrap up today?
Samantha Pruitt:Well, I'll reverse what I normally say, like how your life looks is not that damn important, but how you feel is everything right.
Polly Mertens:100 and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
