Angela McCourt 0:00
Let's get ready for some serious shift. This is a podcast shifting Inside Out hosted by your quantum shifter Angela McCourt, we are diving into ways to empower and enable a quantum shift. Inspiring topics hacks and guest speakers take us on a journey around authenticity, challenging status quo, personal power and living a purpose filled life.

In this episode, we talk about Aaron powers journey. And her journey really started about overcoming whether it was programming or old conditioning around the diet culture, as well as from a health perspective. And so in her pursuit of not accepting health diagnosis, she ended up discovering a whole new way of being of protecting and basically working with the body to be able to live in a way that gives full energy that gives full alignment and as well as listening and being in tune with her body. And now she's taken that over the past decade, and transformed it into being able to help others do the same. And I actually was part of her metabolic reboot 30 Day Program in June of this summer, and it was just eye opening, incredible. Plus, she's funny, very funny, and has a great personality. So I think you will really enjoy her on this episode. But there are such great tidbits here to help you to be able to start making some of the shifts in your own life that help you align better with food, sleep, as well as just being in tune with your body. And so I really am excited to have Aaron on this episode. I'd love to hear your thoughts as you listen. You can find me on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt, and on Instagram at Angie underscore McCourt. So without further ado, let's hear from Erin.

Aaron, welcome to shifting inside out. I'm so grateful to have you on this episode. To get started. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself?

Erin Power 2:19
Oh, hey, Angie. Well, I'm Erin power Hi, listeners. I'm a board certified health coach. I'm also holistic nutritionist, I have a lot of other things that I do as well. But the way that Angie and I Quinn did was through my my health coaching practice, I specialize in metabolism, which is just a very vague word that everybody kind of kind of knows what it means, but not really. Most people know what it means from the perspective of mine has slowed down. It's almost like metabolism. But I like to zoom out I really am a big zoom or outer as zooming out metabolism is simply this system of the body decides how fuel is used. And yes, that can become dormant or slow down or seem to go offline especially seems to happen as we age. But what I really take great pride in is educating people on how this system works because it it, it works it your metabolism works, I promise it still works, how it's designed to work and how we can sort of alter the inputs, what diet inputs, exercise inputs, obviously, but other inputs as well that that influence how this system works. It's extremely enlightening and empowering you know to recognize that you have you have agency over how your body uses fuel. That's just one small thing that you have agency over just one very tiny thing that's the thing that I specialize it but But accepting that you have agency over your body is actually an enormous shift that I love helping people make

Angela McCourt 3:51
I love it. Yes and you definitely enlightened me I will say that which is why I want you on here. I think you have such an important mission especially now for all of us to learn from and to be inspired by and all of that fantastic stuff. So I'm hoping this episode really gets that connection out there and probably brings you some future clients too because I know there are a lot of people especially women but men as well who are really really trying to better connect with their bodies. So I'm excited about this conversation for sure. I do have a few quick round questions just for the listeners to get to know you a little bit. So the first one is what is your morning ritual

Unknown Speaker 4:33
Okay, well i i famously don't have one

Angela McCourt 4:37
I had a couple of those lately.

Erin Power 4:39
Yeah, but I'm I'm pretty staunch about this. I get up and start my day. I don't drink 64 ounces of water I don't have a coffee and I don't like coffee to be honest. I don't have any warm beverage i i get up and start my day. But I think this this answer ends up being facetious and I don't want it to be I do want to be productive What I will say is that I have, I have a strong productivity ritual that has weekly and daily touch points. And so every night before I go to bed, I've got my next day, clearly laid out to the minute. Because if I don't do that, it will for sure fly away from me. So when I wake up in the morning, I know that the first thing I have to do today it was, it was a meeting at 7am, and so on and so forth. Like I just get at the start of the day. And in my day are things like, you know, relaxing rituals, I think a lot of people start their day with their morning coffee, which I love, love, I love a ritual, I don't start my day that way. But believe me when I say I have relaxing rituals, you know, scheduled into my day, then you have the biohackers who start their their morning ritual with like their cold plunge or their infrared sauna. Yes, I have that kind of that kind of personal health care stuff in my day too. But I don't start the day I start the day with by starting by working usually to be honest with you, as unsexy as that is,

Angela McCourt 5:57
it's great, well, hey, you know what it's, it's, it's sometimes the best way, right? Just dive in and just go for it. And then the part I hear from you is throughout the day, then you have, you know, kind of the rituals and the routines that carry you through. So it's probably a better way to manage your energy as well and to stay focused throughout the day.

Erin Power 6:20
I think so. Because the thing is, if somebody hears that and says, oh, this person has a productivity ritual where they, they, you know, they lay their day out from minute to minute to minute to minute, that sounds pretty grindy it's not I refuse to grind. So I put meals in there, I put naps in there, I put stretching breaks in there, because I need to take care of myself and all those ways they're as non negotiable as all my non negotiable appointments during the day. Maybe that's where I differ from people who really buy into the grind culture, which I don't buy into at all. So opposed to the grind culture. It's like my day is scheduled to the minute. And I started as soon as I get into bed, but there's a lot of luxurious time in there.

Angela McCourt 7:06
That is fantastic. And it is hard to get out of the grind culture. I used to be in the grind culture. And I think it's become this, like protective thing for me of really holding on to making sure I don't go back into that. But then I say very productive, very focused with, you know, I get up and actually walk away from the desk, which I never used to do. You know, that's a simple luxury, right? I'm sure a lot of people nowadays, that would actually be a luxury for them. So I love that. Yeah,

Erin Power 7:38
that should go in the daily schedule. Yeah, walking away. Yeah, putting your eyes on a horizon line. Mm hmm. Essential, this stuff is essential. Yeah. Especially for folks like you, and anybody listening who, you know, feels overwhelmed or heavily programmed by grind culture. There's so many cultural influences that were heavily programmed into them. Sure. We'll talk about today. And the grind. One is one of them that we glorify so much.

Angela McCourt 8:08
It's exhausting. I was glad to give it up. I'm a recovering grinder. Okay. Second question, how do you renew your energy?

Erin Power 8:20
Well, kind of piggybacking off of what we were just talking about, I very specifically and pragmatically, and productively assess what is causing my energy to flag so I go to the root cause. So renewing energy, you need to renew your energy when your energy has been taken from you. And whatever that means it could feel like you're dragging, you could just feel overwhelmed, whatever that feeling of needing to renew energy feels like I like to go to root cause what's causing this, but I just feel like again, I'm empowered by that information. So then I will intentionally step away from it. Like we can do this, we can do this we we can step we not only can we we have to step away from the things that are draining our energy so that we can come back to them better. So I literally physically step away from overwhelming things all the time. Very specifically, I live in nature, I live in a forest actually. So I have the opportunity to step away from my desk and go immediately into my own forest, which is a really nice luxury forests are uniquely they uniquely change your energy not to get kind of kooky, but there's so much ecology and a forest and there's just the energy of all that ecology that you cannot be in a forest and not feel immediately, literally brought down to earth. So it started it's not just that I have a forest out my back door, it's because that I will remove myself from the things that are causing my energy to feel sapped and that's not an avoidance technique. It's just a grounding and re centering technique. Then I come back to it fresh.

Angela McCourt 9:58
Yes, beautiful. I Love it. Yeah, nature is my place to go as well. But the forest you're right, I've actually done a couple of hikes in forests in Florida. Mostly pine trees, but some oak trees around as well. But the critters, the critters, the ecology, the flowers, the it's this time of year to where it's a different energy then in the spring, and you're right. It's just so madness. It's very magical, you know, to do that if you're able to, or envision a forest if you can.

Erin Power 10:30
It works. That's absolutely a viable option. I was on a vacation to Nova Scotia recently, which is east coast of Canada. I've never been there before. And because it's coastal, it's so lush, like where I am, I'm in the mountains I'm in the foothills is it's pretty dusty and dry. And you know, it's got its own unique, just very different ecology. So like talking about the forest in Florida, the life that was teeming in this Nova Scotian forest was overwhelming. everywhere you looked, it was just it was just vibrating in life. And I mean that that is the energy of planet Earth and we can absorb

Angela McCourt 11:08
it. Yeah. Oh, fantastic. Okay, what is your guilty pleasure?

Erin Power 11:14
I feel no guilt about pleasure, which is my definitely guilty pleasure. I feel that humans are wired for pleasure. We're wired to seek out pleasure. I think that humans are hedonic animals that want to feel good. And do things that feel good. Like, I have so many examples of this from our evolutionary history that I could go into, but I'll just leave it at that. So I honestly play to my head on it whims, often without asking permission without seeking forgiveness. Now I don't do it, irresponsibly, um, responsibly, hedonistic. But if I have a pleasure, I don't feel guilty about indulging it.

Angela McCourt 11:57
That's great advice. That's great advice. I think as we get into our conversation today about especially connection to the body, you know, we talk about about sensuality, we talk about pleasure, like, we are so disconnected from so much of that, that that alone is such a humanistic thing to reconnect with. So, oh, I can't wait for this conversation. It's gonna be good. Okay, So Aaron, you have this incredible journey that you have been on. And I think it would be so fantastic to kind of lay up our conversation today, just sharing as far back as you'd like to go. And as long as you'd like to go on your journey for our listeners.

Erin Power 12:42
Oh, as far back. As far back as I'd like. It's interesting that you framed it that way. Because in when I tell the story, I don't often go very far back. But I just want I guess I'll set it up by saying like, as previously touched upon, I'm a health coach nutritionist that focus on metabolism. For most people, that is weight loss. So let's just call a spade a spade. For most people who are concerned about their metabolic health, their biggest concern is weight loss. So we talk when we talk about weight loss, we get into my origin story from the perspective of weight. And I remember when I was six years old, I was six years old, I grew up on a farm, and I was carrying buckets of oats out to the barn to feed the horses. And my mom saw me walking down the path to the barn and she thought I was so cute. This little six year old kid loves the apple of her eye, carrying these buckets of green for the horses. And she opened the kitchen window and said, You're so cute. Look at your little love handles. She just was like just doing and I just adore me, my little love handles. That but this is the first memory that I have. If I if I rewind the tape, this is the first time in memory that somebody commented on a part of my body now she did not do it to body shame me. My mom did not body shame her six year old daughter that didn't happen. But it was the first time I remember somebody commenting on the size or shape of a part of my body. And it went downhill from there. So now my mom died in her whole life my whole life. My mom was dieting. My mom was on a diet for my whole life for her whole life mess with you. And my grandma was dieting which is what trained my mom to diet which is what trained me to die like this is generational diet. So, you know kids are innocent we're coming up we were born into this world with these perfectly functioning bodies, these perfect little minds that accept and trust and believe and then we're kind of unfortunately programmed as we go so I got programmed into this is not I'm now extracting my mom out of the conversation. She did not have anything to do with this but the culture did I was then programmed deeply into massive body micromanagement very disordered relationship. with my body, an exercise addiction and eating disorder. I have so many horror stories of my eating disorder, I can't believe I did some of the things that I did to my body, I'm deeply remorseful for how I abused and was violent to my body, through my teens, my 20s into my 30s. But thing is in my 30s, it stopped working, I'm using air quotes, it stopped working. All this micromanagement that I had been doubling down on, stop working and I started suffering I was putting weight on despite being addicted to exercise and really not eating food. I was in my bones exhausted, that was my biggest symptom to sad. So when I framed up this whole metabolism talk and said, most people think about metabolism from the perspective of weight loss, to be really honest with you my origin story, it was the lack of energy, that that sent me to the doctor, I'm 34 years old, and I'm checked out of life. What is going on? So my doctor ran some blood tests, I was pre diabetic, that doesn't make any sense. Because I'm not a sedentary junk food eating person. I'm not a diabetic person. So pre diabetes is like on the spectrum of diabetes, your metabolism. Diabetes is a metabolism disease. So the body is forgetting how to use fuel. Essentially, I'm really simplifying this, but diabetes is when your body has completely forgotten how to use glucose. And the insulin hormone that takes glucose and fuel off into the cells doesn't work anymore. And it's all broken. And I was basically on my way there. And I, I completely rejected that diagnosis, because it did not make sense for me, because I was not overweight, and I wasn't lazy. And all those things that you hear about diabetic people, you know, just this also terrible to just generalize people in that way. So I set out to learn about diabetes, like what is it? I didn't know what it was? Why would I know what that is? Why would anybody know what that is? If unless you've been diagnosed as diabetic, and your doctor says, Okay, you're diabetic, here's your, you know, your standard of care for diabetes, you don't have any reason to know what it is. Yeah. So I wanted to learn what it was. So I started learning about this hormone insulin, I started learning about fuel how fuel goes into the cells, I soon started realizing that the way I've been living my life, specifically in pursuit of micromanaging fuel, like every calorie and every calorie that was all accounted for.

That's not how my body uses fuel. If it isn't used fuel, that way, your body doesn't give a damn, but how many calories you've earned or burned. It's not how the body uses fuel. And as soon realized that I had been living my whole life, a complete mismatch from what my DNA was expecting. Again, this perfect technology that I was given at birth, biological technology, we get to walk around and has an expectation for how fuel comes in how we use fuel when, why where, what kinds. And diet culture tells us something completely different. And by the way, also, like, now I'm in Canada, so we we don't have the food pyramid, we had Canada's Food Guide. Same thing though, a government sort of government prescribed food, like your body doesn't work. That way your body doesn't understand food groups, your body doesn't understand, you know, how you it's the way diet culture has programmed us to think our body engages with food is not remotely hard, but engages with food and I was really mad about that. I felt very hoodwinked and bamboozled. Like, hell, no, I'm not going to be pre diabetic, I'm going to return my body to its optimal experience of using fuel. And so I did, I made some big changes to how I ate. The first thing that happened was, I got my energy back, it was helpful. I mean, I couldn't get through the day. Without taking multiple maps. I'm 3434 years old. I'm trying to make a name for myself, my professional career at the time and like, whenever I was a writer, I was working at a company as a writer and writing requires you to focus and concentrate I couldn't. I had to go to my car and have naps. When I was driving home from work to go to the gym and crush my two and a half hour workout, I'd have to pull over on the side of the freeway to have naps because I was falling asleep behind the wheel of my car. So the first thing that happened when I change the way I ate and it was really just a diet change at first was I got my energy back my body remembered how to use fuel. I was now tapping into the wisdom of my body always knew how to use fuel. It was wondering what the hell I was doing. Like what is she doing? The body trusts you though the Body Trust there's something in this animal's environment for some reason. And while they're starving us and running away from metaphorical bears for three to five hours a day, that was me at the gym. As soon as I started supporting my body and getting it what I was expecting, It rewarded me with more energy than I thought I was even capable of having. But that's actually your birthright. And so for me, that was overwhelmingly exciting to get my energy back. And then, honestly, all the weight I had been gaining around my midsection of middle of the abdominal weight gain. And that's not where I would normally gain weight, I'm probably more of a hips and thighs, girl. But that weight started to just go. And it wasn't, it wasn't my singular focus. But when metabolism starts working, and figuring out how to use fuel, the fuel that has become stuck in your body that you feel is sort of this insidious, where did this come from what is going on here, it's doesn't make any sense. That starts to go, but it won't go until you do the work to tell your body that you know what you're doing. Providing these inputs and metabolic inputs that that makes sense to the body. Once Once everything makes sense. The body will reward you with metabolic wins, like more energy, looser, Pence, feeling better, which is kind of nebulous. And a million other things I could list but I won't. So my journey is really bringing myself back from the brink of prediabetes, but more importantly, bring myself back from the brink of extreme feats of dieting, and I'm very proud to say I'm 46 years old now, I have not given a damn about what I eat really, like I don't, I don't do anything I don't, I don't avoid anything. I don't deprive myself, I've told you earlier. I'm a hedonic person, I do whatever I want. Because I'm generally behaving in a way that supports my metabolic biochemistry. It's still working, and I don't have to have this crazy tumultuous relationship with food. I waste I spent zero mental energy. I said, again, I spend zero mental energy every day, thinking about how much of what I'm going to eat, I just eat when I'm hungry. I eat to satiety. I love every bite of food I eat, it works. But it's to get into harmony with your body. And so that's what I've spent the last probably fifth biggest 12 years doing is getting into harmony with my body. And it's it's a beautiful thing.

Angela McCourt 22:30
Yeah. And that was one of the things when I took your, your metabolic reboot program, which was a 30 day program. It was so honestly enlightening for me because I had been sucked into that diet culture for so long. And disconnected from my body that you it's almost like you taught me again, how to reconnect and how to listen, and how to just like, tune in with when are you hungry? How much you're hungry for what doesn't work? Well, especially as you get older, you know, foods change inside your body. And what could have been a an okay, food, maybe not as supportive food, but maybe not an unsafe or a supportive food in the past now is like totally unsupportive because you feel the effects of it. Like what are some of the things that as you went on this journey of discovering what works for you? What didn't work for you? What were some of those key things around food and around listening to your body and tuning in?

Erin Power 23:34
What What can you just add them so interesting. I love that you're using the vernacular, the supportive and unsupportive food because I don't talk about foods in terms of good or bad I don't I don't really have a list of foods that you shouldn't should or shouldn't be eating. But guess what you do? You know darn well, what foods don't support you. And that could be they don't support you in the sense that they give you brain fog or a gut ache or the obvious. You know, unwellness indigestion the symptoms of a food that doesn't support us. It also could be the food that makes you feel shame and disappointment, right. So this is where I go into like, I always throw Oreos under the bus. I don't know why. But it's like, we keep Oreos in the pantry just in case we want a little treat. Great. I love treats. I'm super duper on Team treats. When the Oreos become this binge trigger for you. And so you you eat one Oreo, then you have 15 Oreos and you just eat the whole bag because what the hell might as well and then you know you're in the shame spiral. And then you're going to start again on Monday. Guess what? Oreos are not a supportive food for you. And I'm not talking about by biologically I'm talking mentally, spiritually that's an unsupportive food for you. And you know, if the Oreos didn't exist in your pantry, you wouldn't have put yourself in the shame spiral. So so the support amount of supportive food is really that was a really enlightening thing for me because I think because of decades and lifetimes of dieting, you start to categorize foods as good or bad. You know, my my predominant diet was the very low fat diet because this was like the 90s on the arts and that's what we knew then. But today it's you know, low carb, low carb as the diet does, you're in. It's like we're but it's just we're just repackaging that programming at this point. But there's wisdom inside of you. There's wisdom inside of you. There's a, there's a list of foods inside of you. There's a list of guests foods and a list of no foods inside of you. And just knowing your lists is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself. And I try to empower readers to make this list now I'd give them a few ideas, like maybe try eliminating this for a while because this is generally considered inflammatory to humans, so on and so forth. But an example that I often use, and I used it in the reboot is popcorn. So first of all, popcorn was for always in forever healthy snack, because if you pop it in an air popper, it was zero fat, and I was always the expert at like, eating zero fat back in my dining days. And as it turns out, I just really love popcorn. It's delicious. Now, these days, I would eat it with butter and salt. But guess what, popcorn? Not good for Aaron, not a good food for Aaron corn, generally delicious corn on the cob, corn soup, corn, bread, popcorn, anything in the corn family, not a supportive food for me. Your mileage may vary. But when I eat corn, I'm down for the count for three to four days and there is definitely got rot instant bloating like instant bloating. And by the way, Bloating is a symptom that whatever you just consumed, whatever you just did, your body didn't like it. Your gut didn't like it. I'm tired of us normalizing bloating. I see that a lot in social media. Bloating is normal. No, it isn't. It's not it's the body responding to something that you put into the gut that it's not, it's not going well in the gut. But I also get brain fog, I get brain fog for three days, I actually can't get my contact lenses into my eyes because my eyes dry out the words that look like it from corn. So like if I'm going to the movie theater. And I just I look at the popcorn, I decide into it or out of it. Based on this data. In the popcorn, I'm looking at four days of gut rot three days of glasses, and probably three days of like, really just not well functioning brain. I can look at my calendar, I can figure it out. Do I have any important meetings? Can I risk it? Sometimes I'm like, Yes, popcorn, give me a large popcorn extra butter. Let's go with no gauge guilt or shame. I opted into it. And then I have that, you know that cluster of symptoms and I knew it was gonna happen so I don't get mad at myself. I don't have to, you know, punish myself or feel bad. I I opted in. And many times I opt out. I'm not gonna have the popcorn. I don't want to feel like hot garbage for four days. Yeah, like, how cool is that? Is this popcorn healthy or unhealthy? Depends on who you ask depends on what era of time you're in. Right? But for me, it's, it's a food I have to think about. Because I know what it does for me. And I never when I when I opt out of the popcorn, I never feel deprived, like, Gee, I wish I could have that I can have it. I chose not to because I don't want to feel like garbage for three days. But I just I love that kind of experience.

Angela McCourt 28:14
Yeah, that's incredible. And I loved that example. Because it really got me to think about almost planning ahead, when you're having to present something when you need to be really clear. It's like your foods that you have within a couple of days before that really matter, as well as sleep, obviously. And one of the things that I had obviously heard of circadian rhythms prior to doing the reboot, but I loved how important it was that you really taught us how to get into the right habits and center environments to be able to activate our circadian rhythms, the way they should be activated. And so as you've been, you know, obviously, kind of mastering this connection to your environment connection to your body over the past decade plus, what would you say was the kicker for you? And you said sleep was important? And how do I get good sleep?

Erin Power 29:14
I couldn't be more excited the way you framed this question because you framed it from the perspective of circadian rhythm. Okay, because everybody's sleep is very important is the second most important thing in my opinion, after food if you want to make a really massive change to the way you feel in your body, change foods or to understand food and then for crying out loud to get some quality sleep. But the thing is, and here's where I push back a little bit on, on sort of the modern wellness world's current sleep fixation, which I'm grateful that it's in the spotlight. But sleep we can't look at sleep in a vacuum any more than we can just look at diet in a vacuum or exercise in a vacuum. It's part of the circadian clock. So the one of the exercises that I took you through in the reboot is this eat simple clock. And where I sketch out a 24 hour clock and I say in a perfect circadian human animals world, here's where sleep would happen, here's where feeding would happen. Here's maybe we're, you know, exposure to sunlight would happen, you know, movement. There's sort of these these ideal scenarios. But whatever about that it, the circadian clock starts with sleep. But because it's a clock, because it's a circle, it doesn't really actually have a start. It all feeds into itself asleep. The sleep quality sleep is a is a remnant of how you live during the day, and then how you live during the day as a remnant of how you slept last night and it cycle really goes we can't isolate sleep, we can just say I'm gonna get eight hours of sleep. Oh, I crushing data or perfect sleep, I feel great. And think that this is going to solve your problems. There's there's this whole 24 hour clock that we can harmonize, too. And we should harmonize too. I know that sounds overwhelming, like wow, that's a lot. You know, Jesus lady is telling me to now change my focus from dieting to just like, obsessing about where I'm at on my 24 hour clock. Not really. But one of the changes that I the first changes that I made in my origin story was changing when I ate. So before I didn't change what I ate, before I uncovered the popcorn thing. I just changed when I ate I read one book, the book is called The Last 15 I have it here somewhere I gotta find it. The last 15 by Dr. Joey Shalom and others to Joey's shamans. This is a Canadian, I think she's, I think she's a physician. And the last 15, the title would suggest it's a weight loss book, the last 15 pounds and you know, so but when I was researching diabetes, this book came up at the time and like, you know, 12 years ago, there wasn't that many books on insulin and hormones and blood sugar and this one came up. So one of the things she suggested in the book was the only thing I took away from the book was this front loaded feeding methodology when when your body wakes up in the morning, it's it's all your body doesn't know what you're going to do, your body has no idea what you're going to do. All it knows is that the sun rose body perceives that the sun rose, even if it's cloudy, light receptors on your body and it on your eyes recognize the changing light of day, it's morning now, and it triggers metabolic processes to fuel the day ahead of you, whatever that is, whether that's sitting on the couch sitting at your desk, to you know, if you've got a big workout on the schedule doesn't matter. The body is ready metabolically to bring up fuel in the early part of the day. But what do we do, we grab a coffee, we have a little piece of toast or like a banana with these lame, tiny little breakfasts, we're in a hurry, and we're too busy. We're in a hurry, I'm gonna grab this banana and this yogurt and just go. So our body was waiting for us a fuel and we dropped the ball. So right out the gate if you change that if you make time in the morning to provide fuel when the body is expecting it. Look what you've just done. You're just harmonized with your body. So first of all, that's that's a little woowoo sounding Oh, you harmonized. But secondly, metabolically it was very important because your body is going to take that fuel now and put it to work for hours. You're good to go. You don't have to think about food for a long, long time because your body is busy because hunger. The the sensation of hunger is your body queuing up. A request for nourishment, not energy, per se is nourishment. I'm just going to use that word as a blanket because it's things like amino acids, minerals, maybe energy. Although most of us have tons of energy stored on our body, we're fine for energy. So just understanding that hunger is your body's polite cue for fuel, and that the body is expecting fuel in the morning. If you provide fuel in the early part of the day, you know, you did a great job. check that off the box you did a good one very important human task.

We think about this circadian clock from the feeding the meal timing perspective. Well, the biggest fuel consumption of most modern humans days after work, big supper, snacks until bedtime. Your body is not expecting that the sun is now going down. Your body is perceiving the changing light of day it's now nighttime, it's putting away all the metabolic machines, metabolic machinery has been switched off for the night the body's getting into rest mode, and we're pulling it with it's so confusing. It's very, very metabolically confusing. So one, one immediately actionable takeaway that people can take from this from listening to this, which I teach in the reboot is start to shift your meal timing to have more food in the early part of the day that will naturally taper you'll just find that your hunger naturally shows up quieter in the evening when you do this. So anybody who struggles with evening snacking, eat more breakfast, it's the solution. So now to go back to your original question which is about sleep We've set this beautiful circadian harmony, harmonious rhythm during the day now we go to sleep at a time that makes sense. Wake up at a time that makes sense. Eat at a time that makes sense. sleep, wake eat. Like this is the cycle of which sleep is a really crucial part. But so the waiting times.

Angela McCourt 35:21
Yeah. Oh, and totally. And if you know, I mean, anytime I've eaten even certain unsupportive foods that I realized after the fact that I'm supportive, I couldn't sleep very well either. So it was, you know, even what you put in your body, on top of the time of day you're putting it in can impact your sleep significantly.

Erin Power 35:38
For sure. You know, I love that you know that. So it's so warming to my heart to hear that you've made that connection. That's all I ask if people start making connections, like when I have clients who will tell me that they've struggled with sleep. And sometimes they'll say it, they'll say it as though it's like a foregone conclusion. I'm just not a good sleeper. Like, stop the bus. Why not? Yeah, well, I wake up in the night. Okay. I need more like what is waking you up? Oh, I'm just a light sleeper. I'm not accepting these narratives. I need you to get productive here. So I often tell my clients the next time you if this takes practice, by the way, but like, if you find yourself waking in the night. What woke you up? What was it? Oh, my bladder? Oh, my husband rolled over the cat stepped on me that I heard a sound outside. Okay. I was hot. That's a big one. Because my clients are women as well. And they're my age. So like, we're getting hot and we're getting warmer, and things go on. But like to me there's a problem to solve there. Like if your husband or your bladder woke you up. Or the cat stepping on you, then you weren't in deep sleep or something you're not in deep sleep is your husband and wake you up. You just never gotten into deep sleep. If you were in deep sleep, nothing would wake you up. Right? So why aren't you in deep sleep? We can troubleshoot that. Temperature wakes you up? Great. We got to cool your body down because your body's expecting to be cool at sleep sleep hours of the day or your body temperature drops significantly. Do you have a massive duvet on or using a heated blanket? Can you cool off your physical space like there are problems to be solved there. No one is stuck being a bad sleeper so with you it's like certain food woke me up. I woke up because I've heard this from clients who say pain woke me up. It's like oh pain okay, what kind of pain like joint pain my knee was throbbing okay, like throbbing inflamed joints. There might be a nutritional or lifestyle, you know, trigger to that. So now we have something that we can go seek out it isn't that exciting? Like, hey, you might actually be a really good sleeper. These narratives these stories are tell like for the longest time, I had bad knees, right? I just had bad knees because I exercise so much. Well, no, when I changed my diet and took all these inflammatory foods out, my knees are completely fine. I've never had bad knees. There's nothing wrong with my knees. But I bought into the bad knee narrative I just hobbled around like a person with a bad knee. You might not have bad knees, you might not be a bad sleeper. If this isn't your destiny, like, anyway,

Angela McCourt 38:15
I think that's beautiful. And also, I think it gets exciting to when there's hope. Right? When there's, there's, there's a way to solve this, let's figure out how to solve it. And then then it's creating the habits that keep that consistency. So you don't end up having those issues. Again, getting the labels out of your head. So you're not calling it a certain thing, actually working with your body. It's just such a different approach than I think we've been conditioned to do or that we've allowed ourselves to do over so many, I would say decades at this point. It is it is really amazing. I feel like COVID especially has almost given us permission to slow down even with the grind culture. Like the guilt has kind of diminished a bit like if you're not feeling well or you're exhausted or you're tired, like to let yourself rest is a different way of being and living then a couple of decades or even a decade ago, I would say for sure. Versus push it through grit, grit grit. I'm gonna blow up grit one of these days in a solo podcast. But you know, it's this sense of when your body says slow down when your body says don't exercise today or walk instead of run or do something that's a little more mild on Me please like I feel like we're finally starting to listen a little bit what are ways that you've learned that will help people to tune into their bodies more, whether it's nutrition, exercise, rest, all of those kinds of components of of the body telling us what it needs.

Erin Power 39:58
Well, it starts with belief, believing that your body knows what it needs, which, which is a huge hill to climb for people who have been embroiled in this micromanagement I have to micromanage food and movement and sleep and supplements and everything water. So get me started on water. Because my body's to carpet to know what it needs know your body is brilliant, it knows exactly what it needs, I'm gonna go to the water thing is example. We drink we carry around these giant bottles of water. Because drink, you know, drink our water, because someone told us to some somewhere along the line, it was like drink more water, drink more water, I get that from clients every time on the intake form. They say, well, I should drink more water. I'm like, Are you thirsty? You're good. That's why the thirst mechanism exists. Like you're good. Like this whole idea of by the time you feel thirsty, you're already dehydrated. Think about that. That doesn't even make sense. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Somebody somebody coined that phrase. And we bought into that narrative again. So like you were talking about this, you frame this question from the perspective of habit change, which is very buzzword right now. But I believe habit change. You won't change habits unless you fully buy into what you're doing and why. And so from the perspective of like trusting the body, you have to just believe that it knows what it needs. You know, when you're thirsty drink, when you're tired, rest when you're hungry, eat like, if you're tired of standing up, sit down, if your back is sore, get a stretch, like just like listening, trusting and responding. Listen, trust and respond is a really good sort of whistle stop on the way to, to respecting the body to reset the Listen, trust that whatever you're experiencing is real and then respond in a way that makes sense. You know, like, the body makes it very clear to us, right? So think about, for example, where do you when you feel tired? What do you feel? Well, your eyes get your eyes get heavy, that's your body's way of saying close your eyes. When you feel thirsty, the thirst is in your mouth. That's your body's way of saying, make a wet thing go in the mouth. You're hungry hunger signal shows up in your stomach. Because your stomach needs food. Your stomach doesn't need food, your cells need nourishment, but they put put the hunger signal in your stomach so that you would think I gotta go film last time I saw myself can you like the body has made it so clear for us what it needs. And all we have to do is just listen, take it at face value, and then respond accordingly. It's so simple. Like I think I think that we I don't think I know that we this is our programming again, that there's no way it could be that simple. I have to micromanage this thing. You go back to grit, grind, hustle slave suffer culture, which is also glorified. It's like if I'm not punishing, pushing and really manipulating everything around me, then I'm sitting still. And it's like, if you sat still, maybe if you sat still, you'd actually have more productive relationship with your body and think about all the ways that would permeate your life. I go back to my origin story. I cut my energy back, what can I do with energy, I got my energy back, I got my mental energy back because I got to extract myself from dieting. Now I have mental energy, physical energy, I can conquer the world. So for any high achieving high performing person, you're spinning your wheels obsessing about micromanaging your health inputs, you're wasting that energy on something that the body can fully take care of for you. And all you have to do is just listen and trust and respond accordingly.

Angela McCourt 43:44
Yeah. Oh, wow. That was like a billboard. Aaron power, Billboard, quote, I think we need to all hear that. Like every day, maybe it's an affirmation. Yeah, exactly. No, that's perfect. And, you know, I think too. One of the things that I loved one of your stories that I love that you have, I think you actually have this out on YouTube, too, is about the black dress. So about a when one of my big goals has been detachment to outcomes, right? So detaching from the outcome, how I'm expecting it trying to, like you said, manipulated or trying to force it or all of those pieces. So I've really been trying to make that shift over the past couple of years because nothing works the way it used to work. So why bother? I love though, your black dress story because this is a perfect example of really just releasing the attachment to that outcome in a way that you're like totally micromanaging it right? You want to share that story with us?

Erin Power 44:41
Yeah, so really excited that you talked about detaching from outcomes. Because there there are in coaching, there's two, you know, categories of goals. Well, we can get into the weeds of all the different ways to categorize goals, but goal trajectory. There's outcome goals, which are very important. We need to have these outcome goals but the process goals are the very granular super nondramatic. Again on the sellable unsexy little steps to get you to the goal nobody's interested in those like, getting comfortable with process goals is a skill to master because the outcome goal will almost always overwhelm you. It just always seems far away. That's just how it is right? Yeah. But the story they have the Christmas dress is that they had this black, very simple I don't have a I'm not a fashionable person. But I found this black dress that I really likes a shirt dress silk shirt dress. Great for all occasions great for Christmas party is great for funerals great for you know, job interviews I could wear to a wedding I suppose. So I call them my Christmas dress because I'd gone to this one store is a Canadian Canadian chain called the redsea. It's kind of all over that with some medium to high end store. And I found this black shirt dress for Christmas party tried it on it fit. Great. I wore it all the time. All the time. I worked for everything. I worked for Christmas party that year. The next year, I worked for Christmas party again, I kept wearing it wearing it wearing it. Third year rolls around, I pulled up my trusty black dress to try and for the Christmas party and it looks terrible. It's like it doesn't. It's also kind of raggedy at this point, to be honest with you. I go to a ritzy. And they have the same dress there because it's a staple. Three years later, they haven't changed the dress. It's still there. So I grab, I grab my usual size. They only had it in navy. My usual size large they only had it in navy. And I was like, Darn, I like this black dress. It's so good for everything. But I grabbed this navy and large and oh, they have the black one and medium. I don't know what the hell. So I go try I go to the change room. I tried the Navy, black dress and large and it just looks like absolute crap. And like, they change it like this change the cut of this dress. And I come out of the change room because there's no mirrors in the change rooms yet to come out. And the girl helping me said, How's it how's it fitting? I said, I've had this dress for three years. And it doesn't usually look like this. Like did they change it? She's like, No, they've never changed it. She said that that was just too big on you. And I said no, I'm, I'm a size large like this is my size. Like I wouldn't I didn't believe it for a second. I'm five foot 11 Like I've always been a tall, big person size large, not a heartbreaker for me because I'm a large person, like I'm imposing person. I go back and change Am I tried to medium and it fit. And I came out and I was like I bought it and suddenly I'm a size medium suddenly. Three years later, I'm a size medium. So I mean, the story goes that every few Christmases I have to go buy a new dress, right and I'm going down I'm dropping a dress size at a rate of like a third of a dress size a year, which is such an which is such a non blistering pace. That if somebody were setting out to drop a dress size, and I said I'm gonna I can drop a dress size in three years, they would not hire me know they would run away because it's not fast enough. But but the thing is, I wasn't doing anything. I wasn't trying to drop a dress size. I was trying to feel good in my body every day, I would begin with the beginning in mind, what can I do today? To feel good today? What can I do to support my buddy today? This is process goals. What can I do today? And I wasn't doing anything big. I was really just putting one foot in front of the other and then wouldn't you know, years later, I'm down a dress size. And so the medium large dress size stories is sort of finite, because I'm never gonna get to a small maybe I will I don't know, I shouldn't say never. But like, you know, pant size. I'm dropping jeans size every two years, right? Not fast. But unlike my peers who are going the other way. And yeah, they have closets full of pants that all different sizes. I've literally everything in my closet fits me and has fit me for 10 years. Like that kind of thing. Like I'm not spending money or mental energy, or the mental anguish of having a skinny jean in my closet that I you know, I want to get into someday and I am losing body fat

without even trying to lose body fat by just supporting other things. Like from a biological perspective of metabolically speaking, I think this is how it works. This is how Metabolic fat loss works you. You get the metabolic machines working and then once it's working is going to start liberating your stored fat it's going to do it but it's not going to do it quickly. As soon as you start getting to fast fat loss mode. You now you're in a temporary paradigm you're going to lose fat quickly get it back guaranteed. But if you can very slow metabolic metabolically supported sort of fat loss of approach is gonna go slow and it will be gone forever.

Angela McCourt 49:52
Yeah. Oh, that's so awesome. And I know that. I think for a lot of the listeners we We have that closet where it's the smaller sizes in the bigger sizes and there's so much anguish over the smaller sizes. I finally like purged all that stuff. I'm like, now, I don't need it hanging over my hand anymore, right? I mean, that was like a big I have one of my clients who she did the same thing. And she's like, Nope, I'm done with it. All I was doing was torturing me. I'm just going, I'm going to figure out the best way to be and my body and live in a way that gives me what I need to be able to, to, you know, bring work into the world, be there for my family, be there for you know, my pets and have the energy to take care of our home?

Erin Power 50:37
Well, I'm grateful that you did that. Because because there's no reason why you should open your closet every day and then feel immediately badly about yourself. Right? When the thing is to like, your what you said is, you know, I'm what can I do today? What can I do in these moments to support the life I want to live in, in a fat loss comes over time I can go buy new clothes, right? You know, I posted this thought experiment on Instagram. out of frustration. I said, Okay, here's the thought experiment. I wave a magic wand. You wake up tomorrow morning, in the size of body that you've always wanted. What's the first thing you do? Or how is your life different? You wake up in the morning, you've got the body, you've always wanted? The one you've been dieting for your whole life? What has changed? What's different? What do you do? And only answer that came up? Will I go to the mall and buy new clothes? I was like, Wow, is that what you're killing yourself? For? i without judgment, I'm like, tell me more about that. Well, I just love fashion, I want to look through to my clothes. Okay, now we're talking about maybe a love of fashion. Or maybe we're talking about a confidence thing. Okay, now we're getting into some intrinsic goals. You want to feel confident, confident to do what, by the way? Like, what is the? Well, now you're confident? Let's say you're confident now what do you go do? Do you go? Do you go ask for that raise? Do you leave that shitty relationship? Like, let's go deeper? Because wake up in the morning in your dream body and going to the mall and buying clothes is not an intrinsic goal. There's no meat on that bone? Like, what do you really want? Yeah, it's a hard question to answer.

Angela McCourt 52:17
Yeah. Oh, it's a great one for us to end this segment on. No, but thank you for that. Because I think part of the conditioning has to do with all the external factors, not necessarily what we truly want or need. And then as we can unlock that in ourselves and ask that question in a deeper way to ourselves. That is how we connect into the changes and the habits and the things that you know, really get us to be able to support ourselves in a way that is is consistent and healthy. And that breaks all of this. Here's what you're supposed to do mentality and conditioning that in programming that's been going on for a very long time for many of us.

Unknown Speaker 52:59
Three generations. So

Angela McCourt 53:00
but yes, exactly. Yeah, I totally agree. I can see that looking back over my family as well. There's a lot of generational stuff, hardworking women, there's a lot going on there that are generational things that have been going on for a long time. Okay, so do you have any call outs that you'd like to share? I will put your website in the show notes, as well as if you have any other books or you'd called out one book in the last 15. I'll put that in the show notes as well. But are there any nonprofit organizations, any anything else that you'd like to share? How often do you normally do your metabolic reboots? And then also, if there's a link I can share with folks in the show notes about how to work with you, that would be great too.

Erin Power 53:48
I do I run the metabolic reboot twice a year, spring and fall. So probably by the time this is out, I'll have one underway because I've got one starting October 1. So the next one will be in the spring. Okay. The metabolic reboot you did it. It's 30 days of everything. I teach everybody. It's no different than what I teach a one on one client. It's really awesome. It's very short, sharp, pretty aggressive pace. Yeah, but but one on one clients, we co create a metabolic strategy together that's more slow. tons of tons of mindset and habit change stuff like we just talked about about like, tapping the brakes, being patient with process not being overly focused on outcome. I'm here to help deprogram people. It takes ages and ages. It's, it's really an uphill climb to deprogram so I work very patiently with people one on one so they can get when they go to website eat simple.ca There's a button there that would initiate the consultation process for booking a call to get into my one on one client roster. But just in terms of like call outs. I think one of my favorite resources is called marks daily Apple marks daily apple.com Okay, pop that one in the show notes because if anybody has Looking for information, I understand the value of information to anybody to a very informative source of just nutrition metabolic sense of sensibly metabolic sensibility, we'll call it Mark Mark Sisson, who's the owner, the website, he's one of my all time gurus. He's one of the people that I learned from when I was trying to figure this out. His stuff just makes sense. So devour content, like, I fixed my body by doing that by seeking to understand my body. So you can do that you feel empowered to understand your body, the information is out there, if you need help with implementation, that's where a coach comes in. happy to chat with anybody.

Angela McCourt 55:39
Awesome. That's fantastic. And I will go ahead and add all of that in the show notes and give them link to your website as well. Aaron, it's been a pleasure having you on thank you so much. I know you're extremely busy. And I just love your mission out in the world. And hopefully others can connect with you to continue their own journey with you. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you, Angie is fun. If you haven't checked out my new book, Love your gifts permission to revolutionize authenticity and leadership. Go ahead and do that today, you can find it on all major online retailers and paperback for only 999. And on Amazon Kindle, which is the ebook version for only 399. I really, really am excited about this book, because this is something that as we look at the evolution of leadership, at the same time, really unlocking what is deeply embedded within us skills and capacities wise to be the authentic leaders that not only we are able to be, but also that help us navigate this unpredictable and uncertain and nonlinear and crazy speed of times that we're living in, where our old ways of being able to get things done to help align with people to get those goals achieved no longer work, also, because the people are demanding leadership to change. And so in this book, when I thought about the different questions that kind of prompted this book, it was all about, you know, do you find it challenging to lead others in a way that meets them where they are? Yes, almost everybody I talked to is struggling with this? Has it been difficult to navigate goal achievement? Absolutely. We can no longer just look at history anymore, we have to have some flexibility in our process in our systems to be able to navigate goal achievement. And then are there old ways of getting things done not working anymore? And the answer is, heck yeah. And so what I wanted to do is really look at how we can break this down into a practical way. Because why leadership is evolving is because of this time of uncertainty, unpredictability, nonlinear timelines and swirling speed, are absolutely requiring a need for change and expansion. And the old behaviors and our barriers and blocks that are holding us back from building the skills and capacities needed in authentic leadership are absolutely outdated, and need to go by by. And then the new skills and capacities that are needed to drive cultural change and fluidity in business today are significant. They're not that challenging for us to unlock. And the interesting part about that is a lot of these gifts and these kinds of archetypes, as I as I frame them in the book, are really about pieces that are working, that are not being recognized necessarily yet, and or pieces that have been working. And we're seeing them modeled, that are not being appreciated for the actual skill, capacity and gift that they are. And those are things like collaboration. And I don't mean the old way of collaborating, where it's still hierarchical, and there's still an agenda set by whoever decided to leave the collaboration or the conversation. And that the attachment to their outcome is what the whole team drives towards. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about real authentic collaboration that allows for even bigger and better and wider and broader outcomes to happen, as well as to get everybody engaged and bought into what they're actually doing in the workplace. So these are these are basically some of the things that I tackle in the book is you know, what is needed to support the current leadership evolution and driving authentic leadership. And you know, as we can break through behaviors and these blocks and barriers, that it allows these gifts to unlock as we start recognizing these gifts in the workplace and modeling them to scale the integration of authentic leadership. This is where the power of the bottoms up in the tops down can really impact culturally throughout an entire organization, and it is time to do it, so go ahead and get my book today. I'm really excited about it. Please leave a review as well because this helps a lot. Even if you don't actually purchase on Amazon, you can review on Amazon. Thank you so much for your support and I hope you enjoy it.