In this special season finale, Coach Jo and Coach Kim reflect on an incredible first season, expressing deep gratitude to their listeners for their engagement and support. From day one, their mission has been to create a space for raw, unfiltered conversations about health, nutrition, and fitness—without the guilt and shame often found in the industry. They’ve tackled everything from metabolism and stress to hormones and toxic diet culture, empowering listeners to take control of their long-term health with knowledge, not quick fixes.

As they wrap up the season, the hosts explore The Metabolic Blueprint, a program they designed to create long-term success through personalized habits and sustainable strategies. They also announce a brief hiatus in the podcast to focus on personal commitments and future plans. Listeners are encouraged to stay connected via social media and their gym, Iron Lab Lacombe. If you’re ready to ditch the diet cycle and find a healthier, more balanced approach, now is the perfect time to explore personalized coaching (in-person or virtual), the Metabolic Blueprint, and start building habits that truly serve you.

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Transcript:
Coach Jo 00:09

Welcome to Perfectly Unfinished Conversations, the Iron Lab podcast with Coach Jo… 

Coach Kim 00:14

…and Coach Kim…

 

Coach Jo 00:15

Where you ride shotgun with us as we have raw, real, unfiltered, and unfinished conversations about trying to eat, sleep, train, and live with some integrity in a messy, imperfect life.

 

Coach Kim 00:27

We're all about creating a strong support system, taking radical personal responsibility, having fun, and being authentic. And one of the most common themes you're going to find in this podcast is the idea that we create positive momentum in our life, by doing what we call b-minus work.

 

Coach Jo 00:45

We’re making gains and getting ahead and loving life without self-sabotaging our goals by striving for perfection. We get it done by moving ahead…

 

Coach Kim 00:55

…before we're ready…

 

Coach Jo 00:56

…when we aren't feeling like it…

 

 Coach Kim 00:58

…and without hesitation.

 

Coach Jo 1:00

Be sure to subscribe now on Apple or Spotify, so you don't miss a single episode. It’s good enough. Let's go.

 

Coach Jo  01:11

Welcome back everybody to what is a bittersweet episode of the podcast. Today is our last episode of season one, at least for now, as we take a little hiatus and before we jump into everything, we just want to take a second to say how much we appreciate all of you who have been listening, engaging and really, truly just showing up for these conversations.

 

Coach Kim  01:34

Yeah, we started this podcast because we wanted to open up and have real, honest conversations, yes, about health and nutrition and fitness, but also the way that we just try to fit it into a crazy, busy, average, normal life without all the extra bullshit. And so the response from you guys has really been incredible. We're so happy. We've had people reaching out, saying how much they love the episodes and how they've changed and supported the way they look at their food, and how they train and, most importantly, how they see themselves. And so that's the whole goal, right? And not just to tell people what to do, but to help them understand why their body works the way that it does.

 

Coach Jo  02:14

So today, as we wrap things up for now, we want to do three things. First, we want to take a look back at why we started this podcast in the very, very first place. Second, talk about how the health and fitness industry has essentially evolved because, trust us, it has again and again. And third, we'll leave you with some tools, resources and ways to keep growing even while we're on this break.

 

Coach Kim  02:39

And of course, we'll share what's next for us and how you can stay connected, because this isn't goodbye, it's just see you in a few months. So Jo.

 

Coach Jo  02:49

Alright, let's go back to the beginning. Why did we start this podcast in the first place? Kim, what was the driving force behind it?

 

Coach Kim  02:57

Well, for me, it was pretty simple. We wanted to offer a way, a no-barrier, way for everybody to spend time with us and get to know us and participate in these conversations that we thought were important and relevant, but also it kind of came from this place of being tired of the same old conversation in fitness and nutrition that in that space, that shaming and accusatory kind of conversation that made it seem like all you had to do was count your calories and cut carbs and do more cardio to fix your body. If you would just do it right, you would get all the results that you want. And we're going to talk about more about this in depth today, but we've been in this industry long enough to know that real health doesn't work that way. It has been drilled into us that if I just control my food and find my perfect number. Weight loss will happen. It will be effortless and come easy. And we're seeing it time and time again with our clients, that that is not always it. And so, I wanted to have deeper conversations about how to do this in a normal life, but also about metabolism and stress and hormones and strength and mindset and lifestyle, and how to incorporate all of those things and to feel like it's all worthwhile and making a dent.

 

Coach Jo  04:16

Yeah, and also, we wanted to help people unlearn all the toxic diet culture nonsense that they've been fed by the industry, media for years and simply just have some honest conversations about it. The guilt around food, the obsession with the scale, the idea that your worth is tied to how much you weigh. We wanted to create this safe, transparent space where people could learn, grow, laugh, and there's been lots of swears, and take action in a way that feels. Feels empowering, not restrictive. 

 

Coach Kim  04:48

That I think, is probably the sweetest line of it. And it's been amazing to see how many of you have resonated with that message. This isn't about quick fixes or punishing your body. You there is no six weeks to six pack abs. It doesn't fucking work that way. And as long as you are on that rabbit… what do you call it? 

Coach Jo  05:10

Hamster wheel! 

Coach Kim 05:11

Hamster wheel, you're gonna drive yourself crazy. And that cycle alone, I have to do it perfectly in order to get results. And when I don't get results, then I'm frustrated, and then I say, Fuck it. And then I fall off, and I go crazy, and I binge and I throw out all the habits because they didn't make a difference anyways, and then I decide that I gotta get my shit together and like, it's just we're on that wheel all the time. And so it's not about punishing your body. It's not about falling off the wagon and on the wagon. It's about loving yourself, taking care of yourself, understanding how to fuel your body, move it and take care of it in a way that works for you forever. 

 

Coach Jo  05:51

Yeah. And like, the industry itself is finally catching up, right? For so long, the dominant message was calories in and calories out. If you weren't losing weight, it meant you weren't just trying hard enough.

 

Coach Kim  06:04

Yeah, or that you were lying to your coach. You weren't being compliant. Yeah, you know, you just needed to tighten up. And I do, I have clients that are so discouraged. They're they go back to what they used to do in order to shave a few pounds off or tighten up their diet, get their shit together, and the scale just does not budge like not a pound. And that's because your body is not a calculator, we want to believe that it is just some set number of calories, like you're some kind of machine, and it's dynamic. Your metabolism adapt. Your hormones play a role. Stress impacts how your body stores fat, muscle mass changes everything. Toxic load is a player, and this the way that we live and the way our food is now like all of it matters,

 

Coach Jo  06:53

And let's talk about the scale, because this is a big one. For so long, people have been conditioned to think that losing weight means success and gaining weight means failure. But here's the truth. Like weight alone tells you nothing like Jack diddly fucking squat. It doesn't tell you if you've gained muscle. It doesn't tell you if you're inflamed, if you're dehydrated, if you've improved your metabolic health. It's just a skin sack of bones against gravity. So we need to stop obsessing over it. There are so many other data markers that are worth following, like muscle mass, visceral fat, inches down, body fat percentage. And then we can go into, how is your daily energy? How did you sleep last night? How you rebound off your stress. If you can lift heavier? The list goes on and on.

 

Coach Kim  07:40

Absolutely and our clients, all clients, people have been so brainwashed that only the scale matters that you can tell them all those other wins, like, look at you. You're changing everything in positive ways, and they remain discouraged and upset, like, yeah, but the scale says I've gained a pound, and we're talking about things that have such huge benefit to your health. Like inflammation is down. Water weight is gone, your muscle mass is up. Your energy is up. You have more energy in the day to give to your life. Your deep belly fat is shifting. These are all absolutely better markers of health, and we cannot get our eyes off of the scale. Like this is the person who focuses on strength training and eating enough protein and managing stress. You might weigh the same as you did five years ago, but your body composition can be completely different. You can have more muscle, less body fat, better energy, better health, and that is really what truly matters. 

 

Coach Jo  08:40

So, where do you go, the listener, from here, how do you keep learning and progressing even while we're on a break.

 

Coach Kim  08:48

First, remember that your body is a master at adapting to what we give it, and your body is always working to save your life. It's doing the best that it can with what you're giving it. So if you're not giving yourself enough water or basics, whole nutrition, protein, veggies, fruit, if you are grazing or skipping meals or eating too late at night, staying up at night, like it's just trying to manage that input. It's just trying to manage those signals and creating exceptional health isn't actually about restriction. It's about tuning in and listening to yourself, plus understanding your body, understanding hormone health. It's about nourishing yourself and looking after your body, giving it quality, quality food, quality inputs, quality training, rest, boundaries, all of it. So if you take nothing else from this podcast, let it be this, your body is designed to work for you and not against you. You don't need to diet harder. You don't need to, you know, push yourself further. You need to train smarter and eat to fuel yourself and manage your stress in a way that supports that hormone cascade, or what we know as your metabolism.

 

Coach Jo  10:06

And second, it's really important to stay curious, like keep questioning the information you're being fed, especially in the fitness industry, and lord alive, especially on social media. If something sounds too good to be true, guys, it probably is. Look for science backed approaches, not quick fixes. Just like Kim said, Ain't nobody getting six pack abs in six weeks, for heaven's sake. 

 

Coach Kim  10:33

Third, if you want real, personalized support, that's exactly why we created The Metabolic Blueprint. 

 

Coach Jo  10:40

The Metabolic Blueprint is for people who are just done, like they're done with the diet cycle, the endless loops of restriction, frustration and all that rebound weight gain. It's for people who truly have like tried it all, calorie counting, macros, keto, intermittent fasting, juice cleanses, eating only cabbage for a week, barf, only to find themselves exhausted, stuck and worse, feeling like they failed.

 

Coach Kim  11:05

And let's be clear, you haven't failed. Diet culture has failed you, and the problem isn't willpower. It's the fact that most diet programs are designed only for short term results, not long term success. They don't teach you how to work with your body's metabolism. They don't address hormones. They're not talking about muscle mass. I mean, they are more now, but the original ones were just strictly about, how do I lose weight? And remember what we said, your body is a master at adaptation. It can only do so much with less and less and less. So the more you restrict, deprive and now I even heard, like recently, the the last kind of thing I read on this was even if you have done one restrictive diet in your lifetime, your body is such a master at predicting a shortage of quality coming in that it will already down regulate its own metabolic state to match that. So you can screw up your metabolism or, not even screw it up, you can't really screw it up, but you can, you know, create inefficient… 

Coach Jo 12:10

Make it inefficient. 

Coach Kim 12:11

Even by doing a diet one time. And most of the clients we know have done multiple two times a year, starting some kind of a restrictive I just need to get my shit together. I'll cut out this and this and this. And after four weeks of super restriction, they say, Fuck it. And then they go back to binge eating, or regular, I should just say regular eating potato chips and wine after supper, because that feels better than than iceberg lettuce and boiled chicken, which is pretty much what people think is diet food. And they've created this cycle that just has set you up to struggle and and they just tell you to eat less and exercise more, which we've talked about is outdated, ineffective and and often damaging. And the last word on this is there is this camp out there of health pros and nutrition experts and PhD doctors who are saying calories in, calories out, are the only thing that matters, and if you're not losing weight, you're not in a calorie deficit. And I do understand that. And I think by the time you are at an age where your body has been around the block and you've done some, a number on your own metabolism. We're going to need to look at kind of reverse dieting a bit, and flooding the body with good nutrition and and looking at some of maybe the things that are kind of creating havoc on the system and inflammation. And if you were a 25 or a 30 or a 35 year old person who hadn't had that kind of a history, yeah, maybe all you'd have to do is tighten up your calories and you'd lose weight. But for the women that I'm seeing and working with, babe, let's talk about all the things, right? Let's talk about all those inputs, because it's I just haven't seen where it is that black and white for people, at least not consistently. 

 

Coach Jo  14:07

Yeah, all the areas of deep health, we have to look at. The Metabolic Blueprint. Program is different. It's not about fixing your body. It's really about understanding how it actually works. We focus on building habits that are going to last, like, what are the biggest dial movers in your journey, where you're going to see the best results in your own life and how you live your life in your own personal world, right? Because sustainability is the key to real results, and that really means we got to fuel your metabolism instead of starving it, we got to eat in a way that supports muscle, energy, and hormone balance, training in a way that's going to help you to build strength, but also. Resilience. So you want to keep at it, managing stress, sleep recovery, so your body can actually function at its best and then just really, truly breaking free from the scale and learning, learning, truly, learning what real progress looks like in your own life. 

 

Coach Kim  15:01

Well, and that you've said it so brilliantly, because I think that's the other thing. Is that every diet program out there is a cookie cutter. You buy it, you get it, you do it, and it's based on the same program for everybody, so to speak. Whereas part of why The Blueprint is so awesome is because it takes your life, your history, your specificity, your preferences, the way that you like, your habits, the way that you live day to day. And then we reprogram the way that you think about health and nutrition so that you can stop spinning your wheels and actually make some progress in your own life. No more yo-yo diet, no more cookie cutter 1200 calorie programs. No more obsessing over every bite of food. No more spending all day Sunday, doing all your meal prep, buying a laundry list of ingredients, like no more workouts that leave you sacked instead of feeling strong, like we need to do this clear, science based, science backed plan to help you feel better, get stronger, gain more energy and take control of this once and for all. Because here's the thing, is that that is the part I think that diet culture has done. The hardest number on us over is if this is why it's not short term, if all the habits that I have ever done have gotten me to who I am right now, if the way I eat, sleep, train, live every day, has built this version of me, and I wish to change that. Then I am going to have to evolve in the way that I approach my everyday for the rest of my life, and it's going to continue to evolve. Otherwise, I'm not going to be able to keep what I want to change anyhow. You cannot change and then go back to the way that you always did it, because that's how you ended up here. You know, like we have to actually look at, how do I turn the ship around one step at a time? It's not that I'm never going to enjoy some of the things that I have now. It's that those are the things that have created what I say that I don't want, and so that if I don't want that anymore, if I want to change the way I feel, then I need to look at how I'm going to turn the ship around and go the direction that I do want to go to get what I do say I want, right. And so it's just like this. It's this whole life shift.

 

Coach Jo  17:19

Yeah, you have to have a growth mindset. If you're going to be fixed, you're always going to end up in the exact same place that you started at. And that's part of the whole cyclical cycle, right? And life does everybody differently, and you do life differently than everybody else. And that's why The Blueprint is so great, because you're an individual, and it's going to be your blueprint, yeah. So really, if you're tired of the cycle, if you're done guessing and want a plan that actually works for you, not against you, like this is for you. You don't need another diet. You don't like you need a blueprint for long term success. 

Coach Kim 17:54

Your own blueprint.

Coach Jo 17:55

Your own blueprint, yeah. And that's exactly what we've built inside The Metabolic Blueprint. 

 

Coach Kim  17:57

So, if you think that this is something for you, you know, I would say, reach out and let's just have a deeper conversation based on your history, your lifestyle, your goals, what you want, so that we can help you, support you in customizing your own blueprint that fits around your life and your body, not by something that you're trying to fit yourself into. 

Coach Jo 18:25

So what's next? 

Coach Kim 18:26

What's next? Why are we taking a break? Well, we have some exciting things in the works that we're focusing on. Jo is just finishing hockey season, and it's been a long, long winter. You know, like you, she's running hard. We've got some other things that we need to pay attention to here at the gym. We've done 22 episodes in what like?

Coach Jo 18:43

Less than a year. 

Coach Kim 18:45

Crazy, pace, and it's been so amazing, but we really feel like it's a huge commitment, and we've offered up a lot of really good stuff. We just need to take a little bit of a breather to collect ourselves, to do our own self reflection, to decide kind of what our focus, personally and professionally will look like over the next year. Now that she's done hockey, and we can have a chance to connect and ground and connect with people again on the floor, she's been off from her regular coaching shifts. There's just a lot going on. And so we're we're excited to connect in other ways.

 

Coach Jo  19:19

Yeah, we're gonna still show up in other ways, for sure. And we want you to stay connected. Remember, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, either personally or with the gym at Iron Lab Lacombe, inside the Metabolic Blueprint Program, if you work closely, one on one with us, and of course, at the gym here in Lacombe, we be on the floor. We're not going anywhere. We're just going to be shifting our focus for a bit. 

 

Coach Kim  19:41

That's right. And a little reminder that we can work anywhere, like that's the beauty of on the. Online, virtual, remote. We've got clients everywhere, BC we've had them…

Coach Jo 19:51

Viking, Alberta.

Coach Kim 19:52

In the states, like we're, yeah, we're, we're not inaccessible, that's for sure. So before we go, we just want to leave you with this. You really, truly are not meant to spend your life loathing, fighting against, or wishing your body was different. You are meant to just work with it and embrace it and love it and take care of it and trust the process and focus on habits over perfection, and remember that your health and your strength is so much more than a number on the scale. 

 

Coach Jo  20:24

Thanks for being here, guys, thanks for listening for growing with us. This isn't a goodbye. This is just to see you later. So take care of yourselves and we'll see you soon. Bye, Bye. 

Coach Kim 20:33

Bye.

Coach Jo 20:36

You probably got a sense of who we are by now and what our personal approach is to developing a lifestyle that creates really great health and strength. Using a relational common sense coaching approach that is backed by knowledge and personal experience

Coach Kim 20:51

There are a couple of ways that you can work with Jo or I, one on one, remote or you can actually train here at Iron Lab. 

Coach Jo 20:59

The first is the Metabolic Blueprint, personalized coaching program, which is customized for your life and your body. 

Coach Kim 21:06

We work together very closely either in person or remotely to help you conquer old diet drama and to get lasting results. 

Coach Jo 21:16

Ideally, we'd love to teach you how to never buy a quick-fix diet program or app again. 

Coach Kim 21:22

Next, there is the accelerator academy, which is up to 12 months of self-paced weekly bite-sized lessons and journaling exercises, that we’ve created to help you create the lifestyle habits that generate a true transformation. 

Coach Jo 21:40

Find out more on our website: ironlablacombe.com/metabolic-blueprint We'll see you next time.