Lifting More Than Weights to Find Joy

00:11 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the unhealthy podcast, where we actually talk about trying to live healthy and be happy the goal I set for myself when I started this journey and we are going to get more into that A little bit later. I'm going to have a guest on We've actually had her on before Dr Carrie Johansson. If you have been paying attention to the show, she was on two shows previously Navigating Joy and Embracing Psychological Flexibility. I've got her on because she has an interesting story that we went into depth on off air. I said we've got to talk about that on the air. She will be on in just a minute.

01:03

One of the things that I told you that I would do when we first got started was to always keep you updated on my progress, because one of the reasons that I started this show was to get my butt in the shape and feel good about my body. We hadn't talked about that in a while. I figured it was time to let you know where I am with that At the very beginning of the show. It was fantastic. I was doing well. Just like most of us, we go through a period of time where, hey, lose a few pounds. Eat healthy, exercise a little. Things are going well. I had lost, I think it was eight or nine pounds, in the first few episodes of the show, just like every other year. And for those of you that have been on diets, I didn't go on a full diet. I didn't say I went all in, I just changed a few things, cut out some sugar soda, tried to change a few things. I'm not going to say I went hard at it, before you sit there and say, well, Marv, you didn't commit. I understand that I lost those pounds. Life was good. I have to say they're all back. I'm back to where I started, not any worse. I'm not in a bad place. Most of the time when people see me they're like oh, you look good, which I know they're lying, but I'm okay with where I'm at. I wanted to give you at least an update. The goal is still to lose a few pounds and to basically get rid of the gut. I'm losing the battle with the greatness in my hair. I've always said to the wife that you know what. I'm not going to be one of those people that dies the hair and does all those things to make myself look younger. I will tell you this. I'm thinking about it because that's a lot of gray in the hair. I understand what you ladies go through to some degree, but that's where we are. I also want to let you know I'm working on another podcast that will be strictly separate from this, but I at least want to give you guys another update.

03:21

At the end of January, I went to a conference in Orlando and I stayed at a crappy resort hotel. I was supposed to be at one of the big hotels that the conference was at, but apparently I got stuck in overflow and it was a place that had resort in the name, but it was not even close to a resort. It was basically a motel with a pool and it was, you know, one of those wall AC units. I mean it was. It was nasty. I'm not going to say it was nasty, let me let me the way I'm used to traveling. It's not that I'm a snob. I don't stay in you know the high end Hilton's, Hyatt’s or what. I don't even know which ones are the high ones, but I stay in nice places. This was not one of them. So I thought I was just getting a little, you know, cold or something. Nope, turns out. I got COVID. So that happened, I'm assuming, because of the conference, because many of the conference attendees also received the COVID. So I had that to deal with.

04:28

And just as I was getting over COVID, I lost battle with a piece of candy. And what does that mean in reality? Well, it means that at like 1045 at night, I'm at my office, which is not my home. For those of you that do not know, I do work outside of the home. I have a separate office. It's about a thousand feet from the house and I was at the office working about 1045. I was just about ready to wrap things up and head home popped in one of those red, minty, dissolving pieces of candy I don't know what they're called, but I do that a lot and I thought, oh, I'll just have a piece of this. And the next thing I know I'm yeah, I'm doing that, and I don't know how much longer it took for me to wake up but I woke up on the floor of my office with a busted up head. So I hit something hard, whether it was my desk, my credenza, a head on the floor which was carpeted nice new black carpet that we just put in. So I couldn't find where all the blood stains were. But yeah, that happened and because I had hit my head and had some issues with the shoulder and the neck, called the wife and figured it was. It was in our best interest, my best interest, that I had over to the ER. So that was just over two weeks ago.

05:55

I am fine, folks, I'm here, you can hear me. The soreness is mostly gone in my neck and shoulders, the tingling is gone. The stars on my face are just about gone. Nothing major with the eye. Mom was all worried because apparently I broke one of those orbital, occipital, whatever the bone underneath the eye is called. It was busted, fractured or something, but it was one of those that they can't do surgery on. So that's a whole story.

06:28

I wanted to give you an update on that. I basically I'm going to build that story around the concept that if you really want to get seen at the hospital pretty quickly, don't drive yourself to the ER, because apparently they think if you're well enough to drive, then you can wait a while, which I did. So that's it. That's the update for me. Folks, a lot to grasp there, and if you see me in person, I'm sure you'll look at my eye and see ooh, is it really good or not? But that's the way the croaky tumbles. So let's go ahead and move on and talk about what we really wanted to talk about at least what I wanted to talk about and that's bringing back Dr Carrie Johansson. Dr Carrie, how are you?

07:15 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Hi Marv, I'm good. I'm so sorry to hear about your incident. I'm just I'm very, very glad you're okay.

07:22 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Well, thank you for that, and I mean, yeah, it's scary, but it wasn't. You know, it wasn't a major accident, a major crash, but it's interesting to say the least.

07:38

It is interesting it's in a heading woman, yeah. So I told everybody earlier, as I was describing to you, that you know we had the two previous podcasts that we did and basically the I mean they were. They were good episodes. I actually got a little bit of feedback on them. Now, did you get any feedback from any of your folks that you may have pointed to on LinkedIn or any of your social medias?

08:07 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

It is really interesting. People seem to be resonating with this notion of increasing joy and letting joy into your life. So the practicality of psychological flexibility people seem to resonate with. But the specific feedback I got was like, yeah, what, what could I do that I would really enjoy this week? And could I give myself permission to do that on purpose? So I thought that was awesome.

08:36 - Uncle Marv (Host)

So it is one of those things. So what I, you know, tell people. I guess the tagline of the show has become you know, the goal is to live healthy and be happy. And you know, living healthy people like, yeah, that's nice, but the whole be happy thing, how do I, how do I just be happy, how do I wake up and enjoy what I'm doing? I go to work, I'm grumpy, I go to dinner with friends and, yeah, I'm okay for a while. But then other things creep in and this concept of being happy is kind of interesting.

09:08 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

And I think one of the most important things to remember is happy is an emotion which means it's going to come up and then it'll fade away. But it is actually an emotion, like all the emotions we can feed it Right. Like if you want to feel really pissed off in the world and you really want to feel angry, like, my guess is we have lots and lots of grist for the mill there. Right, you could figure out things to be angry about. We can figure out things to be afraid of, but we don't often deliberately slow down and invite ourselves to pay attention to the things that make us happy. I think oftentimes we feel like we'll get to that after we're done getting our to-do list done, and the trick is to actually put the happiness boosting activities on your to-do list and don't have to be expensive, don't have to be extravagant or huge, it can be really little.

10:05 - Uncle Marv (Host)

You made a comment that made me think that there is so much happiness these days, and I don't know when it started. I'm going to go back to my childhood and think that, you know, I was happier with less back then, and it seems as though today, whether they're children or even adults, happiness seems to be wrapped up in the things that we have to have.

10:35 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

It's wrapped up in the things and we've gotten happiness confused with what we deserve. And if you could see me, I'm using air quotes around the word deserve. So deserve is a word I use very sparingly because I think at the moment, at this particular cultural moment in time, we're having a lot of conversations about what we're entitled to, what we deserve, what must happen, how you must treat me and, interestingly, all of that is inherently rigid thinking I'm only OK if you say things the exact way I want you to. I'm only OK if I have the next expensive fill in the blank. And the answer that we know, actually from decades ago. Research is that material things only boost happiness for a very short period of time and then we get used to them and it just fades out. So when we have less and when we purposefully cultivate experiences instead of pursue things, that is a much more effective and longer lasting way of having happiness both come up and then stick around for a while. So when we're in appreciation instead of an entitlement, we tend to be much happier.

11:56 - Uncle Marv (Host)

So, I'm sorry, my mind is shifting to the TV shows that we watch because, so you know, we purchased a house years ago and that actually got me into watching all the HG TV shows, you know, the Fixer Uppers and all of that. And I remember I started getting annoyed watching some of those House Hunters shows and even the shows where you know they buy a house cheap and then they've got, you know, 200,000 to fix it up. And listening to, and I'm going to say, the young folks talk about how they, you know, have worked so hard and deserve their forever home when it's their very first purchase and it's got to be, they've got to have all of the amenities. Where, you know, generations before us you kind of worked up you had the starter house, you had the starter car, you know, and you worked your way up and now that's not the case. Is you're right? This I deserve or I'm entitled to is.

13:10

I graduated high school, so I'm good to go.

13:14 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Right, I deserve a six-figure job.

13:16 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Yes.

13:17 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yeah, and what we've forgotten is actually one of the ways that happiness arises is when we have earned that right, when we have put ourselves through something that's a little bit of effort, and then gotten ahold of it. So putting in effort, being uncomfortable, is actually critically important, and part of getting to happy and then staying happy is really digging in, which means that you don't feel comfortable first and then you're happy. You actually feel uncomfortable, you work through it, and that equals a higher level of satisfaction, both with yourself and with the world in general. Yeah, I don't know about you, but, man, I lived in some really crummy places. If I was just starting out, holy cow Right.

14:16 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Yeah.

14:17 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

But I remember them with a lot of fondness. Right Like the worst place was this place I moved into and it didn't have any heat, which is real convenient in a place like Colorado. And didn't have any heat so we had a wood stove that we had to keep going the whole winter to be able to have heat and we had a black widow spider infestation that evidently we found this out after we had moved in and started seeing spiders. The black widow spider infestation had put the previous tenant in a coma for two weeks coma and the owner of the house hadn't really fully exterminated it. But so I mean, this place was crummy.

15:07 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Okay, so my first question is did you know that before you moved in, or did you?

15:13 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

find out after. Well, that we found out after. But the interesting thing is I look back at that house and I can say objectively like that was a crummy place. Our landlord was not psychologically healthy. We had to get the place exterminated for the black widow, spiders, all of that. But the most forward emotion I have about that crummy place was that it was the place that my roommate and I found that would allow me to keep my cat and we both loved my cat and so it was affordable. It was right in downtown Golden; we could walk everywhere and we got to have our cat and we had a ball.

15:55

I lived there for almost three years, right, and you know you tell the story about the coma and the spiders and all that. And the interesting thing was they were all things that we had to put a little effort in to be able to get on the other side and then we could just be in so much appreciation. But that notion of putting some effort in and then enjoying the results, that actually makes a person much happier than having everything be perfect. It's harder to connect with that, and so I think one of the things I'm seeing particularly in the younger generations is they have this idea that once things are all set up and perfect, then they'll be happy, and what they're missing is it's actually the effort along the way that increases satisfaction, contentment, pride, all of the things that boost happiness.

16:49 - Uncle Marv (Host)

The other thing that I'm thinking is not only do they have that expectation that we're doing, but they also have that expectation that once things are perfect, they'll always stay perfect and that they won't have to work to keep them where they are. Which is kind of what I got myself into. I had played sports my whole life. I've always been in shape and running and playing ball and you know, I retired from basketball and I said I'm done and ridiculously thought I'll just keep the same. That's a whole study. This body's good for another 50. And that's not true. You know the work still has to be done.

17:31 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yeah, exactly, so we started talking last time a little bit about my powerlifting career.

17:36 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Yes, yes.

17:38 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

And I think this dovetails really nicely into what we're talking about you actually have to put in the work to get a result, right? Yep? And similarly, when I started lifting, I was 39. I was just a couple of months away from turning 40. And I was just feeling super frumpy. I was out of shape, I would get winded easily, I wasn't very strong, I just felt frumpy, right. And I'm facing down the barrel of this new decade and I'm looking at 40 and I'm thinking to myself this isn't happening. Oh my gosh, I'm 40. And at the same time, I'm thinking to myself I'm only 40. Like, if I feel this crummy now, like this isn't a good setup, right For the rest of it. We want to actually set ourselves up well, and so that is how I initially went in and found a trainer.

18:43 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Now, was it the mark of turning 40 that kind of triggered it, Because for some reason there's that was it 29 and 39 or two big date years for women that there's this whole mindset of what the life expectations are.

18:59 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yes, and I think for me, I always like thinking about what's the next decade contain? What's the next decade like? So a piece of it was definitely that turning 40. A lot of it was how I felt in my body and feeling like to stagnant and frustrated and stuck and not happy with how I looked. I will say spoiler alert I'm now in my fifties and fifties are the best decade ever. They are fabulous, especially if you take care in your thirties and forties to set yourself up for really vibrant fifties. There's no reason to feel old and frumpy.

19:39 - Uncle Marv (Host)

There's no reason to be young and frumpy, nope, okay. So there's a nice 20 year journey there we can go over. But let's go back to. You were having those feelings. How in the world did you go from feeling that to powerlifting? It just doesn't seem like a very logical next step, especially not for me.

20:09 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

So your audience can't see me, but I am just this miscellaneous middle aged blonde chick right who you know. I'm just a miscellaneous middle aged blonde chick right is not particularly athletically gifted. I do not have my hand-eye coordination skills are poor at best, even when I practice them. If you hand me a basketball Marv and give me a chance at 100 shots, I might make 11 of them. I am terrible, right, and I grew up in this family where I was the book nerd and my brother was the athlete and we had these kind of very solid stories about who we were and what that meant. Right, and some of it was behavioral right, like I earned the title of a book where I'm pretty honest, if you ever saw me growing up, at the likelihood I had a book in my hand and I was curled up in a corner somewhere was very, very high.

21:07

I don't remember if I told you this story, but my mom and my best friend's mom actually did an intervention with myself and my best friend when we were probably 12, maybe 11 or 12. So my best friend's mom called my mom and she's like don't let them read. What? Make them go outside and do something. Don't let them read, you know, and my mom and my best friend's mom, they participated, they collaborated in kicking Aaron and I out of the house so that we couldn't read. Now, just for the record, Aaron and I brought our books outside and went red. But that's a whole another story for now.

21:51 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Okay, but to put things in perspective, so in your fifties that puts you in the seventies and eighties when kids went outside yes, the expectation was to go outside.

22:06 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Aaron and I would be, you know, like curled up in a corner reading a book. So I'm an academic. I have three college degrees, right? I'm a psychologist blah, blah, blah. I'm good at this school thing. I'm good at analyzing things and solving problems, and all of this. I'm not particularly good at sports.

22:25

So I walked into the trainer with a story, a negative story about myself not being an athlete, on top of a negative story that I was getting old in from peace. So the trainer I ended up hiring I particularly liked him because he was studying the intersection of neurology and physiology. So he's trained in a specific modality called Z-Health and he's a kettlebell instructor and he had all of these certifications. But the thing that really made him feel like the right fit for me was he was looking at the neurology of how your body worked. How does neurology impact your physical functioning? So he's a nerd too. He's much cooler than I am, but I start lifting right with him and he's helping me work with my body. He's challenging my old stories of I have no hand-eye coordination. He's like hand-eye coordination is a skill. We can make it better, and he did. I'm still terrible, but he made it better. It's better than horrible, right? So? And in the lifting, all of a sudden one day he says to me you know, you're actually good at lifting, I'm like I am.

23:45

I don't know I'm just lifting stuff, right? He's like no, you've made really big progress. When I first started working out with him, I couldn't lift one of the 45 pound plates and my high weight on deadlift was 232 pounds. And I started out and couldn't lift a 45 pound plate. So big progress right and big progress took. This did not happen overnight, but he essentially said you're good at this, you should compete.

24:19 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Okay, before you get to the competing part, I want to go back and understand how you actually got to the gym part, because the first thing I'm thinking of is you do what everybody else does. You talk about changing the diet. You're talking about exercising in the sense of maybe walking, or, if you're going to the gym, it's to simply do cardio. So what was it that got you actually to join a gym?

24:49 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Well, I had done the walking thing my whole life and there wasn't enough of a return on it anymore. Right, okay, I was running too heavy, I was feeling too flabby, I needed something more, and I knew that I needed some sort of coach or accountability person or whatever, because I didn't know enough to figure out how to do it myself, and I also was aware. I don't know if this happens to you, but and this is still true for me 13 years after doing this, I go to the gym and I do not push myself as hard as when I go to the gym with a trainer.

25:30 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Right, okay, I mean, I get that. I understand that I go into the gym and do that stuff, whether it's a partner or a trainer, somebody has to help, hold you accountable and push you. So I just wanted to know how you got from A to Z.

25:45 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

And I made it as easy as possible. I went to the gym. That was a rec center so it was affordable. It was walking distance from my house. Like I the barriers to entry, I picked the lowest ones right. Like I didn't start by going to the really intimidating gym, I went to the. I went to the easy going, friendly gym All right, so and you find the perfect trainer.

26:12 - Uncle Marv (Host)

It sounds like and-.

26:13 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Which was, yes, a miracle, and I much appreciated yeah.

26:18 - Uncle Marv (Host)

So you get to this point where you've worked out, and he sees this in you and he says that line to you should compete, what. What went through your mind when he said that?

26:34 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Well, what I said out loud was who put the crack in your cereal? Are you crazy? I can't compete, I'm not an athlete, right? And he essentially he's very stubborn. And he essentially said well, I entered you into this contest.

26:55 - Uncle Marv (Host)

He entered you before even asking you.

26:59 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Pretty much. You know he's like. He's like this is coming up and you're doing this, okay, right. And so then I went and did it and he did a great job of training me to do well, which was helpful, right, like he was not unrealistic. He was training me to do well and powerlifting is a very friendly sport. So it's divided by gender, age and weight and at the time that I was entering into this there were not that many particular masters women competing. So low barrier entry sport. It's not incredibly expensive. The equipment that you need it's, you know, not horrendously expensive or hard to get, and then, once you have it, it tends to last a long time. So powerlifting is a real sort of gentle, competitive sport to enter into which is very helpful.

27:59 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Now, so that people understand powerlifting. I think some people would think of it as the strongman competition that we see on TV from time to time, which they're doing weird little. They're pushing buses they're pulling rocks or something. That's not it, right? I mean we're talking this is gym weight powerlifting stuff, right?

28:24 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

These are barbells, gym, weightlifting, and I think also most people think of powerlifting as what they see in the Olympics, where they see people throwing things over their head and then dropping the weights. Powerlifting is back squat, so you put a barbell across your back, load it with weights, you squat down and then stand back up.

28:44 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Okay, basic squat.

28:46 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yep, basic back squat, bench press. So you're lying on a bench, you have a barbell, you take it out of a rack, you bring it down to your chest, you press it back up, you rack it again and then deadlift, which is where you have a barbell loaded with weight and you pick it up off the floor. It normally comes up to about mid-thigh and then you actually have to put it down. So, unlike Olympic weightlifting where you drop the weights, the powerlifting deadlift is a lift and a controlled return to the floor. Okay, yeah.

29:18 - Uncle Marv (Host)

And these are all three things that I did in my school and at one point in time I have no idea if it's still there. I doubt that it is because we're talking many years ago I actually held the record for my high school, for my weight class, for the combined lifting of those three things.

29:44 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yes, Isn't that cool.

29:47 - Uncle Marv (Host)

So I know exactly the exercises you're talking about and are interesting.

29:53 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yeah.

29:53 - Uncle Marv (Host)

So he enters you in. What was the thought going into the very first competition?

30:03 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

It was. I was a combination of nervous and intimidated and also like it's okay, this is okay, you can do this, just try it. It's something new, just try it. And the cool thing about this is I just tried it and then I won.

30:24 - Uncle Marv (Host)

The first time you won.

30:25 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yeah, I won. Now, there were only two people in my weight class but I won and that was so cool, right? And then there was another meet coming up and then I did that. And then my trainer calls me and says how much do you weigh? He doesn't. He didn't even say hello. I answered the phone. Hi, jay, how much do you weigh? Why are you such a jerk? I respond. He goes Well, I'm pretty sure if you lose 10 pounds, at which point I cut him off. Oh yeah, jason, I'm a middle-aged woman. I've never thought of losing 10 pounds. I'm like again, what is up with you? Why are you being such a jerk today? And he's like Carrie, just, will you just stop for a minute and listen to me? I'm like I'm sorry. And he says If you lose 10 pounds, it'll put you in the lower weight class. In the lower weight class, you could win the state records. Would you be interested in setting some state records?

31:34 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Okay.

31:35 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yes, yes, I am Okay, so I did Right, which was really fun and really fantastic and definitely not a healthy way to lose weight. Just for the record for your podcast listeners.

31:53 - Uncle Marv (Host)

I was going to save that question for later.

31:56 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

I lost 11 pounds in 16 days and, you know, through a combination of an outrageous number of workouts, steam rooms, saunas, eliminating all carbs, except for one day when I was picking up my daughter from school and I was like mommy needs a donut, my daughter's like I'm down to help you with that. But other than that, you know, it was like just it was a major restrictive diet tons of water, tons of sauna and sweating and workouts and all that. Do not recommend that. I do not think that's a healthy or reasonable way to lose weight. And in fact, my trainer will now say, oh my gosh, I was such a baby. I cannot believe that you and I did that together and that we thought that that was a good idea.

32:42

He's like never in a million years would I recommend that again. However, I was highly motivated. Interestingly, I wasn't motivated. This is one thing that I think is interesting for your listeners. I wasn't motivated because I'd been trying to lose 10 pounds, because I didn't like how I looked forever. As soon as the motivation was about something that was really based in my values and was really inspirational and exciting, I could do it Right. But coming from a place of disliking myself and being hard on myself and beating myself up, that didn't do it. So I think that one little piece of how I did that is worth holding onto and replicating. Right, but yeah, so I lost weight. I made the lower weight class. They've since kind of redistributed the weight classes, so the numbers are a little different now.

33:38 - Uncle Marv (Host)

You say that as if you're still competing.

33:41 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

I'm still adjacent to it. I no longer, I no longer compete. There's a whole number of reasons why, but yeah, I don't, I don't compete anymore. Now, I just looked for fun.

33:53 - Uncle Marv (Host)

All right. So lifting for fun, does it still qualify as doing what you want in terms of your initial reason for starting in the first place?

34:06 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Absolutely. I feel stronger, fitter, healthier than I probably have in my whole life. I walked into my 50s feeling strong, confident, healthy and not afraid of getting a decade older, which was fantastic and really one of the cool things about lifting and you probably know this already but strength translates to gains with cardio in ways that cardio never translates back to strength. So, for example, you know, when I was walking a lot or even when I was running didn't make me stronger. Sometimes it was effective to get skinnier, but it wasn't effective to get stronger. And the cool thing about weightlifting is I can be lifting, not running, and then when I feel like going for a trail run, I can do that. When I wanted to catch up with my you know play with my daughter and her friends and be able to chase her around. I could do that so much more comprehensively once I was lifting and training in that way than just, you know, than just doing cardio.

35:17 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Yep, there is a whole science as to how muscles respond to the weightlifting. That also translates to how they breathe, I guess is the best way to describe it and translate into that cardio, all right, so I'm going to ask this question, just so that I don't forget. I assume that your brother doesn't have any state records, even though he was the athlete. He does not, so how does he react to what you have done?

35:52 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

He is so sweet. He said he's a really good supportive brother and for him he really celebrated me figuring out that I could be athletic and I really celebrated and he and I actually had this conversation. I was out visiting him and he was reading I think it was the Steve Jobs biography, which was like 500 pages. It was a huge, thick book and I'm just like look at who's the bookworm. Now you know, and it was just what it was. I was so pleased to be pleased for him and he was so pleased to be pleased for me. It was really lovely.

36:29 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Nice, nice. So I know I stopped you because I needed to ask that question. But is there any more to the story now that you know we've talked about what you went in for, the fact that you got lulled into this competing phase, which you now contribute to, you know, now putting you in a state where you are, you know, stronger and fitter, and it sounds happier.

36:56 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

It's happier, it's more confident, and the cool part about it is I can also tell you stories, actually, about competition. When I didn't win, walked up to the bar looking for a deadlift, thought I had it lost the lift, dropped the bar, right. Not fun. Getting pinned under a bench press bar while training, having to wait for someone to get it off of my chest, right. So I think it's important to know this isn't. This is like anything else that's worth doing. It doesn't start low and end high. It's. There's beautiful, awesome, fun parts to it, and then there's hard days and then there's neutral times and that right.

37:43

And so it's actually the mixture of things that you're seeking. This idea is that the only thing we're seeking is perfection. Not only is it unattainable, it's also really boring. The mixture is actually where all of the cool stuff happens. So letting yourself be in the mixture of it and being able to do an assessment right, and then me doing the assessment of like, hey, am I going to do these competitions? And initially the answer was yes, and then at some point, the answer became no, I'm not going to. I'm going to change how I approach this, and that's okay too. So give yourself the flexibility to grow and change over time. Yeah.

38:26 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Well, I know we're going to run out of time here soon, so I want to make sure that I remind the listeners if you haven't gone to the other two episodes. Your website, self-help on the go, is a place where people can go and see and hear a lot of what we've talked about, and of course, you've got a book, self-help on the go. Yeah, that talks about you know this, therapy and training on. I think the tagline in your state says navigating something of life with ease, right?

39:04 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Navigating the inevitable ups and downs of life with more ease and joy.

39:08 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Yeah, so I know that I kind of got you to talk about this. Is this a story that you share with people, when you're chatting with them and trying to help them, because at some point there needs to be, you know, obviously, some self-motivation. But it sounds like that wasn't something that you found out on your own. It was found out for you.

39:38 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yeah, it was certainly assisted in this process right, and it was helpful to have someone outside of me who could see some of my potential and he could believe in me. Before I understood that that was an option, and I think I think that's one of the coolest things about therapy is oftentimes I feel like my job is to hold hope for my clients before they understand that they deserve to feel hopeful themselves All right.

40:06 - Uncle Marv (Host)

So again, self-help on the go website you can go to and look at her stuff. Basically are speaking and training, and is this the website? I should have done more research before. Is this the website where you guys coordinate those hiking trips that you talked about doing?

40:27 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

No, the hiking is a totally personal thing. It's just a personal goal. My goal this year is 275 miles. As of today, I am 23 miles towards that goal.

40:39 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Okay.

40:40 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Which isn't too shabby considering that it's, you know, snowing in Denver.

40:46 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Yeah, that would not entice me to walk at all.

40:50 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Yeah so.

40:52 - Uncle Marv (Host)

All right. So again, I know we're going to have to go here soon and you've told your story there. I should probably ask you when I was going through my intro and doing my update, did anything catch your ear that you were thinking, oh, I can help, mar, fix that?

41:14 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Well, one of the things that I noticed was that you aren't beating yourself up, but you are noticing what's working and not working, and being in that assessment mode is a great place to start of like hey, I have this intention. Whoops, I seem to have gotten really off track. Huh, I wonder how I'd like to get back on track. And then, when you link it back to action, I think it's going to be really good for you.

41:38 - Uncle Marv (Host)

All right, we'll definitely stay in touch and see if I link it back properly.

41:46 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

Thank you, Marv.

41:47 - Uncle Marv (Host)

Dr Carrie, thank you for sharing and it's a great story and should be. I imagine that I can see you on a stage in front of a large audience telling this story that has happened, that that is one of the goals is to get right there yeah. All right, be a nice little Ted talk.

42:12 - Dr. Carrie Johannson (Guest)

I think so.

42:14 - Uncle Marv (Host)

We will look for you there and that's going to have to be where we are today. Uh, Dr Carrie, thank you very much for joining me. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are listening to this point, thank you, and be sure to come back and check out more stuff. You can find the podcast by starting at unhealthy podcast com. On that page you can click whichever pod catcher is your favorite so that you can be notified whenever the next podcast come out. You can go back and listen to past episodes, like the two that I mentioned with Dr Carrie, and be updated on my progress as I continue on my journey. But that's going to do it and the goal of this, as I mentioned early, is to live healthy, be happy. So go out, do it, and we'll see you next time. See you soon.