Do you know the exercise guidelines by heart and still skip the workout because you'll never hit them? Have you wondered whether a ten-minute walk is worth putting your shoes on?

In this solo episode, Tara is talking about the minimum effective dose of exercise and why you might not need to work out as much as you think to see real health benefits.

After a conversation at our recent wellness retreat, she wanted to break down what the research actually says about movement, strength training, and staying healthy as we age.

You'll learn:

• How much exercise per week you really need to support your health, and why doing less than the recommended amount can still make a difference.
• How many steps a day is good for your health, and what the research reveals about the 10000 steps a day myth.
• Why strength training for women is so important as we age, especially strength training for women over 50, and the benefits of strength training for women that go far beyond appearance.
• What you should know about lifting heavy weights women might find intimidating, including what "heavy" actually means for your body.
• How exercise snacks can help you fit more movement into your day, even when you have a packed schedule.
• How to approach exercise for longevity so you can stay strong, active, and independent as you get older.

If you've ever skipped a workout because it wasn't going to be enough, this conversation gives you a starting point small enough to keep.

Let's rebrand wellness together!

Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

💜 Take a well-deserved break and recharge your mind and body!

Join us for an hour of guided relaxation for just $20. Reserve your spot today!

Connect with us!

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN

• Instagram: @elizabethharrisnutrition
• Take the FREE quiz: What Type of Eater Are You?
• Join Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: The Nourished Table
• Get The Ultimate Self Care Planner Here

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer

• Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com
• Instagram: @tara_de_leon_fitness
• Join Tara’s Newsletter HERE
• If you're in the Annapolis area, follow @everybodystrongannapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout!

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC

• Instagram: @coaching_therapist
• FB: Maria W - The Coaching Therapist LLC
• Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!

Resources Mentioned:

• Listen to our episode on the 10,000 steps myth to hear how that number got started
• Want more ideas for squeezing movement into a busy day? Listen to our full episode on exercise snacks

What does it actually look like to build a healthy relationship with food, movement, and your body without making weight the main focus?

In this episode, we’re talking about what weight neutral wellness looks like in real life, from intuitive eating and health behaviors to boutique fitness and creating a more supportive fitness community.

We get into the ways diet culture can quietly shape how we talk about food, exercise, and our bodies, even when we have good intentions. We also share how changing the language we use can help create a healthier gym culture where people of all sizes feel welcome.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What “weight neutral” really means, and what it does not mean
• How intuitive eating and weight-neutral care can shift the way you think about health
• Why body image can be affected by seemingly harmless comments about weight and appearance
• How to talk about food, exercise, and bodies without reinforcing diet culture
• Why focusing on health behaviors can be more helpful than obsessing over the scale
• How the environment inside a gym can shape someone’s experience with exercise
• What a more inclusive fitness community can look and feel like
• Why non scale victories are worth paying attention to
• How to respond when conversations about weight, body size, or appearance come up
• What progress can look like when fitness and wellness are about living your life, not shrinking your body

If you’ve ever felt like wellness always circles back to weight loss, this conversation offers a different perspective on food, movement, body image, and what it can mean to feel healthier in your own body.

Let’s rebrand wellness together! Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Connect with us! The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN Facebook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

If you're in the Annapolis area, follow Everybody Strong Annapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout: https://www.instagram.com/everybodystrongannapolis/

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!

Have you ever started taking better care of yourself and watched the people around you get uncomfortable?

In this episode, Maria shares what happens to your relationships when you stop people pleasing and start setting boundaries. Some of those relationships were built around a smaller version of you, and changing that version renegotiates the deal everyone else signed up for.

Maria goes first with her own story, including the question her therapist asked her at 47 and what she found underneath years of self abandonment. Tara and Elizabeth take it home, where people pleasing in relationships looks like the mental load women carry and the chores that default to one person. Boundaries for women often get treated as a personality change, and we get into why.

You'll learn:

• Why some relationships were built around a smaller version of you, and what that costs later
• How approval seeking runs your choices, and what changes the day you stop
• What self abandonment in relationships looks like after years of asking what everyone else needs
• Why outgrowing friendships happens without anyone in the story being the villain
• How setting boundaries with family changes the deal everyone at home signed up for
• The grieving process that arrives with seeing the pattern
• What it takes to invite people into the new version of you instead of leaving them behind

If you've ever set a boundary and watched a relationship cool off, this conversation gives you a way to read that without landing on yourself as the problem.

Let’s rebrand wellness together! Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Connect with us!

Experience Wellness Rebranded in real life! Join Elizabeth, Maria, and Tara on October 3rd for Inhale, a one-day fall retreat with movement, nature walks, nourishing food, and conversations that go deeper. Reserve your spot here.

The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN Facebook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

If you're in the Annapolis area, follow Everybody Strong Annapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout: https://www.instagram.com/everybodystrongannapolis/

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

Episodes Mentioned

Want to go deeper on the pattern underneath all of this? Head to episode 178, Struggling with Self Abandonment? How to Reclaim Your Mind-Body Connection and Stop People-Pleasing to Fit In. It picks up right where this conversation leaves off.

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!

Would you still exercise if you knew for certain it wouldn't change how you look?

In this episode, we're talking about what sits underneath the things you do for your health, and how diet culture taught us to read a changing body as proof that exercise is working. We get into functional fitness, exercise for longevity, body neutrality, and what a healthy relationship with food looks like once appearance stops being the scoreboard.

Tara makes the case for a different goal, Elizabeth takes on the false story we've been told about control, and Maria brings the frame she uses as a therapist to sort which habits are worth your time.

This conversation touches on:

• Why exercise gets treated as visible proof, and what that does to your body image
• What functional fitness looks like when the goal is balance, strength, and getting off the floor
• The all or nothing thinking trap that shows up when one goal doesn't land
• How Maria's protective factors vs risk factors frame decides which habits make the list
• Why non scale victories are the evidence most of us were never taught to count
• What Tara means by a weight neutral approach, and what it doesn't mean
• How exercise benefits mental health, strength, and endurance whether or not your body changes
• Why joyful movement still counts when your body looks similar a year from now

If you've ever wondered whether you'd keep going without the promise of a different body, this conversation gives you a better question to ask and a wider set of markers to answer it with.

Let’s rebrand wellness together! Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Connect with us!

Experience Wellness Rebranded in real life! Join Elizabeth, Maria, and Tara on October 3rd for Inhale, a one-day fall retreat with movement, nature walks, nourishing food, and conversations that go deeper. Reserve your spot here.

The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN Facebook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

If you're in the Annapolis area, follow Everybody Strong Annapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout: https://www.instagram.com/everybodystrongannapolis/

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

Episodes Mentioned

If this conversation landed, go back and listen to episode 188, What Your 80 Year Old Self Wishes You'd Start Doing Today: Intentional Aging, Physical Activity, and Social Connection. It picks up right where this one leaves off, and it's one our listeners keep coming back to.

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!

What happens to your body image when it feels like everyone around you is shrinking? Is it possible to be genuinely happy for someone else's weight loss and still feel completely thrown by it?

In this episode, we sit down together to unpack what's coming up for so many women right now as GLP-1s and rapid weight loss dominate conversations everywhere.

We get into a moment where a comment about someone's changing body turns into a bigger question about whose body gets discussed and why, the line between respecting someone's body autonomy and absorbing new pressure ourselves, and the social comparison that still shows up after years of body acceptance work.

Here's what we cover:

• Weight bias doesn't disappear when weight loss becomes easier, it just changes shape
• Staying in a larger body gets read as a choice the moment a drug exists that could shrink it
• Thin privilege is real, and it shows up differently depending on who's in the room
• Body trends have cycled through decades of history, which says more about culture than about bodies
• Body neutrality can be a more honest goal than chasing body positivity every single day
• How body grief fits into body acceptance, and what happens when you skip it
• Self discovery matters more than any number a scale or a drug can give you
• What to do with your social feed, your conversations, and your values, including where self discovery comes in

If you've ever felt like the only person in the room whose body hasn't changed, this conversation gives you company and a way to think about it that doesn't start with your body.

Let’s rebrand wellness together! Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Connect with us!

Experience Wellness Rebranded in real life! Join Elizabeth, Maria, and Tara on October 3rd for Inhale, a one-day fall retreat with movement, nature walks, nourishing food, and conversations that go deeper. Reserve your spot here.

The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN Facebook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

If you're in the Annapolis area, follow Everybody Strong Annapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout: https://www.instagram.com/everybodystrongannapolis/

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

Two Oreos in a kindergarten lunchbox. That's all it took for one mom to text the whole class asking them to stop packing cookies because her family doesn't eat them, and for the other moms to respond by sending their kids to school with Oreos on purpose. By the end of the saga, every child in that class had Oreos in their lunch except hers.

Oreo Gate turned out to be a content creator's invention, but all three of us recognized a version of ourselves in it.

In this episode, we're talking about what Oreo Gate gets right about forbidden foods, mom guilt, and the parenting anxiety that can turn a cookie into a verdict on your mothering. Elizabeth owns up to the years she chased perfect nutrition for her kids and the food rules she'd never repeat. Tara knows exactly what it's like to be the kid without the treat, and she's still sorting through good and bad foods at 42. Maria brings the therapist lens, plus a true story from a mall playground that has nothing to do with cookies.

We also get into why mom groups turn on each other so fast, what the school's letter got right, and why packing lunches covers five meals out of twenty-one, along with:

• Why the cookie you keep off limits becomes the most interesting food in the classroom
• What one text to the group chat reveals about a mom's own relationship with food
• The false sense of control that keeps food anxiety in charge, and what's actually in your hands
• Why clearing every obstacle for your kid costs them the practice they'll need later
• How to sit with your child through a small disappointment instead of fixing it
• How kids build body confidence when food stops being sorted into good or bad
• Why food neutrality beats diet culture for building a healthy relationship with food

You can't control every lunchbox that lands next to your kid's, and this episode makes the case that you don't need to.

Let’s rebrand wellness together! Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Connect with us!

The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN Facebook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

If you're in the Annapolis area, follow Everybody Strong Annapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout: https://www.instagram.com/everybodystrongannapolis/

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

Episodes Mentioned

Want to go deeper on raising kids who have a healthy relationship with food? Go back and listen to Episode 27, Ending the Legacy of Diet Culture: How to Raise Intuitive Eating Kids.

Experience Wellness Rebranded in real life! Join Elizabeth, Maria, and Tara on October 3rd for Inhale, a one-day fall retreat with movement, nature walks, nourishing food, and conversations that go deeper. Reserve your spot here.

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!

Does your eating feel off after a summer with no set routine? Now, you want to feel better—without getting stuck in the failed dieting cycle that works for awhile but ultimately leaves you frustrated, right back where you started?

In this episode, Elizabeth shares a gentler, more realistic way to get back into healthy habits that help you feel good, without jumping into another restrictive diet or getting caught in the all-or-nothing cycle.

You'll learn:

• How to recognize the on-again, off-again eating patterns that may be keeping you stuck.
• Why food guilt can show up the moment a summer without structure ends, and what that may be telling you about your current relationship with food.
• How emotional eating can creep in when stress and low bandwidth take over.
• Why self-compassion can help you make healthier choices more consistently.
• How to create a simple, realistic food plan that actually fits your life.
• How habit building through one small, doable change can work better than trying to overhaul everything at once.
• A quick way to figure out what’s been working well and what might need some attention.
• Why your self talk around food, diets, and “getting back on track” matters.
• How to start building more flexible and sustainable eating habits.
• How group coaching with a nutrition coach supports the change you're already trying to make

This episode gives you a plan flexible enough to actually hold, built around your life instead of another reset.

Let’s rebrand wellness together! Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Connect with us!

Add your name to the wait list for Stop Starting Over, Elizabeth’s upcoming Small Group Coaching Program: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/waitlist

The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN Facebook/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

If you're in the Annapolis area, follow Everybody Strong Annapolis for studio updates, class openings, and details on the grand opening free workout: https://www.instagram.com/everybodystrongannapolis/

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

Ready to stop starting over with food? Join the wait list at https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/waitlist to get first access to my new fall program.

Come join the conversation in the Health and Healing with Intuitive Eating Facebook group and let me know what stood out to you in this episode.

Episodes Mentioned

Want to go deeper on meal planning? Go back and listen Meal Planning Without the Daily Food Stress! How to Reduce Decision Fatigue and Make Dinner Easier for Your Family to the earlier episode on how I teach clients to be meal ready.

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!

For so many women, diet culture never looked like a diet. It looked like discipline, like being "the healthy one," like a body image built around control. You made food rules without ever writing them down, and the food guilt that followed felt normal.

In this episode we unpack diet mentality: what it is, the hidden ways it shows up, and how it keeps running in the background even when you've never technically been on a diet. Elizabeth shares her own years as a vegetarian who told everyone it was about health, the rush back to the gym within days of each of her babies, and the pride of being the disciplined one. Tara and Maria bring the versions they've lived and the ones they see in the women they work with.

We also get into why diet mentality intensifies for women in perimenopause and midlife women navigating a changing body, and why intuitive eating works as an antidote to years of restriction, plus:

• Why body control feels like being healthy and disciplined from the inside
• What food rules sound like when they're dressed up as virtue
• Why food guilt shows up even when you're eating exactly what you planned to eat
• The question that tells you what diet mentality is actually costing you
• What changes during perimenopause and midlife that make old patterns louder
• How the wellness rabbit hole leads to disordered eating without weight ever being the goal
• The write-it-down exercise Elizabeth gives clients to surface every hidden food rule
• Why intuitive eating gives you a real way to challenge those rules and let them go

Letting go of diet mentality doesn't require an overnight transformation, and this episode shows exactly where to start.

Let's rebrand wellness together!

Elizabeth, Tara & Maria

Experience Wellness Rebranded in real life! Join Elizabeth, Maria, and Tara on October 3rd for Inhale, a one-day fall retreat with movement, nature walks, nourishing food, and conversations that go deeper. Reserve your spot here.

The Ultimate Self Care Planner: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.ck.page/9e817ab37e

Connect with us!

Elizabeth Harris, MS, RDN, LDN

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ElizabethHarrisNutrition

Take the free quiz, What Type of Eater Are You?: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/quiz

Join The Nourished Table, Elizabeth's monthly recipe club, for $20 a month: https://elizabethharrisnutrition.com/recipe-club

Tara De Leon, Master Personal Trainer

Email: FitnessTrainer19@hotmail.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tara_de_leon_fitness

Join Tara’s Newsletter: www.taradeleonfitness.com/connect

Maria Winters, LCPC, NCC

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coaching_therapist/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/MWcoachingtherapy

Website: www.thecoachingtherapist.com

Episodes Mentioned

If this episode resonated, go back and listen to Episode 105: The Myth of Short-Term Diet Success: The False Promises of Diet Culture, where we dig into the false promises of diet culture.

If you want to start a podcast or grow your existing one, visit julianabarbati.com and let them know we sent you!