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Emily Shaw, known as Dairy Girl Fitness, joins the OG3 to discuss her influence on social media combining dairy and fitness promotion. We take a big picture view for some of the episode and then move to some questions that are more fun. Can you still eat great food and get in shape? How does almond beverage compare to real milk? What is the one thing both Emilys can't be without when they are working out? Listen to find out!
Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
[music]
Emily: Welcome everybody to The Moos Room. Emily, here. I am joined by my esteemed co-host, Dr. Bradley J. Hines, and Dr. Joseph R. Armstrong. Hey, guys.
Dr. Bradley J. Hines: What's up?
Dr. Joseph R. Armstrong: Hello. Thank you for using our full titles, full names, all of that. That's great.
Emily: You are so welcome and I'm just Emily nobody.
Joseph: Just Emily.
Bradley: Harm safety educator. YouTube extraordinaire.
Emily: Harm safety and health educator. Today is a really exciting episode because it's not just the OG3. We have a guest today and dare I say, probably the most famous guest we've ever had.
Joseph: Yes, that's fair. That's fair.
Emily: Our most famous guest we've ever had, over 18,000 followers on Instagram, and yes, I checked right before we started recording. We are joined today by somebody that I just love engaging with and is very inspirational to me, and I'm really lucky to call her a friend of mine. It is Emily Shaw, better known as Dairy Girl Fitness.
Emily Shaw: Hello, hello. I'm really excited to be here.
Emily: Oh, we're excited to have you. Joe and Bradley were pretty excited about it, and they were like, "Do you think we could get Dairy Girl Fitness on?" I'm like, yes, of course, we can.
Emily Shaw: Yes, you've got the in with Dairy Girl Fitness.
Bradley: Emily has got the in with everybody always.
Emily: True. True. I believe I have the record for getting the most guests for the show.
Bradley: You do.
Joseph: I think you do and I'm just fine with that.
Emily: Before we dive into talking a little on your background, Emily, and what you're doing now and how that all ties into dairy and agriculture in general, we mentioned that we have two super secret questions that we ask every guest. They're super secret, but they're not super hard. That's the good news. Bradley and Joseph will both tell you that there is a correct answer, and I'm here to tell you that that is a lie. The first question I have for you is, what is your favorite breed of beef cattle?
Emily Shaw: Scottish Highlander.
Emily: Ooh.
Bradley: That's different.
Joseph: That's a new one.
Emily: That's our first Scottish Highlander, I think, yes?
Bradley: Right.
Joseph: Yes, absolutely. That is the first Scottish Highlander. It's hard to go wrong there. It's super cute, fuzzy, all that kind of stuff. I'm not a big fan of the horns as everybody knows.
Emily: Yes, we know you hate horns, Joe.
Joseph: All right. That puts the total if everyone's counting at home, Herefords are still leading the pack, which Brad says is the right answer at six, Black Angus at four, Chianina at one, Brahman at one, Stabilizer at one, Black Baldy at one, and now Highlanders at one.
Emily: Love it. Question number two, you can probably guess is what is your favorite dairy breed?
Emily Shaw: Easy, black and white Holstein. I know that's your favorite. I'm just kidding.
Emily: See these two love Jerseys. I knew for a fact you'd say Holstein, so I'm like, yes.
Bradley: Very well. Thanks for joining the podcast today. Thanks for joining the podcast.
Emily: What does this red button do?
Bradley: Exactly.
Joseph: Ridiculous.
Emily: With another Holstein, what is the count at, Joe?
Joseph: With another Holstein that puts Holsteins at six, Jerseys at four, Brown Swiss at four, Dutch Belted at two, Normandy at one, and Montb�liarde at one.
Emily: Love it. You love to see it. You pass the test, Emily, so you get to stay on. We're not going to boot you out.
Emily Shaw: Good. Good.
Emily: Just to get started and I'm sure some people are familiar with you and some may not be if you want to give us just a really brief, brief, brief background on who you are, a little bit on where you come from, and then just a little bit on what you're doing now, and then we'll dive into that a little deeper.
Emily Shaw: Yes, for sure. I will try to keep it brief. I don't want to bore y'all with it, and I pretty much put my life on social, but I'm Emily Shaw. I'm 25 years old and I currently live in North Central Florida. I am a Pennsylvania native, and that's where I grew up with my family and our siblings on our farm, Linden-Loch Holsteins. Through that, we grew up in 4-H, FFA, just about every youth organization imaginable through the Dairy Association. I also grew up playing sports with a lot of my siblings. That's where my passions for dairy and fitness came from and really how I used that to create Dairy Girl Fitness.
A lot of those interests grew through my time at Penn State. Then in 2017, I moved down to Georgia to be on my boyfriend's family dairy farm. Then about three years ago we moved to Florida. That's how I started as a dairy girl in Pennsylvania. That's how I'm now in Florida, which I can say I never ever thought I would be a Southern girl ever. Moving down here again, started Dairy Girl Fitness as my way to create dairy promotion and tie it into another community that usually doesn't see that. Now I am an online personal trainer through Dairy Girl fitness
Emily: She does so much more and we will get into that as we go. I just want to add that, yes, Emily mentioned all those great dairy organizations and different things she's done with her siblings and that's actually how I met Emily is through her sister. Shout out to Rebecca. She better listen to this. Rebecca was actually the one who saw that I was really into fitness and she just messaged me one day and said, "Hey, my sister runs this account and you should really check it out." I think, Emily, that was back when you had like 4,000 or 5,000 followers and now you're like superstar influencer status.
That's really cool to hear a little bit about that. Now you're doing the online coaching and so is that what you do full-time? I believe you were also working in the agricultural industry, really on the industry side for a while. Tell us a little about that.
Emily Shaw: Yes, so graduated from Penn State in May 2017, and I have a bachelor degree in ag business management with a dairy science specialization. I've always been really interested in the marketing, advertising, promotion side. When I moved south, I had a couple different jobs. I've worked for nutrition companies, randomly worked as a credit analyst at a bank in Georgia. Then when we moved to Florida after a little bit of time I was, let's call it, a business analyst at a local dairy feed mill here near in town. I was on the industry side of things and I just wasn't able to be in the promotion type of career that I wanted.
That's really what encouraged me to start Dairy Girl Fitness. I did start that while I was working in those other jobs and that is mostly what I do full-time now. I've been about full-time with my one-on-one coaching for just about over a year now. We have an assistant coach with Dairy Girl Fitness and I'm affiliated with a couple different brands of athletic clothing and nutritional companies. I'm able to create that as part of my business. For the most part, my biggest part of the business is going to be the coaching on one-on-one side or group coaching.
Emily: Oh, Joe, you have a question?
Joseph: I do. I do have a question because I've been wondering about this. Your workouts and the things that you post, are they geared specifically for farmers, or are there certain exercises that you really focus on when you're making these workouts to gear them towards dairy farmers in general in that lifestyle?
Emily Shaw: For the most part, my biggest focus is going to be on strength training and weight training. A lot of that can be done in the gym, but I also do allow a lot of our clients to do at-home workouts.
It's not necessarily tailored to farmers or those in the dairy industry specifically, but I also understand that I work with a lot of women in dairy and ag and a lot of the times maybe they're in very rural areas or just not close to gyms or can't really get off their farms so I do allow a lot of flexibility in that way, but more so I would just open it up to all women who want to get into strength training, but knowing that a lot of women in ag maybe don't have that availability to the gyms, I do try to create again, that flexibility with the at-home workouts if it is needed.
Joseph: Especially lately, obviously the at-home workout is completely revitalized. If you wanted to get at-home gym equipment right now you're paying double, triple, quadruple if you can even find it. I really like that concept of being able to do something. Going to the gym and commuting sometimes that's a lot of work and it adds extra time when we all know that farmers are short on that to begin with.
Emily Shaw: Completely agree with that. Yes, I've had to get pretty creative with some of the at-home workouts and whatever the ladies do have at home because as you have said, any sort of equipment, especially dumbbells right now cost about an arm and a leg.
Emily: Yes, and as somebody who knows the value of an arm and a leg, that's accurate. The next question that I wanted to ask is about your platform as not just a means for fitness and not just a means for dairy, but really for the two together and how dairy is a part of being fit and being well overall. I just want you to talk a little bit about that maybe from as a consumer or somebody not familiar with dairy perspective and then from the dairy perspective too, what kind of feedback do you get from other people in the dairy industry?
Joseph: Before you go, I just want everyone who can't see at home to know how excited Emily Shaw just got with this question. It must be like a really, really important topic to her because she was just bouncing in her chair. Getting ready-- Okay, go ahead.
Emily Shaw: This is a topic I love to talk about and it's the exact reason that I created Dairy Girl Fitness because I grew up in the dairy industry and so did my siblings and I, and I still have family members operating dairy farms, but I wouldn't say we grew up in the traditional sense of we didn't grow up directly on an operating dairy farm. We just had heifers and show animals at our house. I didn't go on the farm every day and milk and feed calves and it wasn't my entire life. That's where sometimes even getting into the dairy industry always felt, not displaced, but I was involved in a little bit of a different way.
That's what I really wanted to bring into Dairy Girl Fitness to create these conversations with people who may not have those traditional ties to the dairy industry. From the consumer side, I know it's very frustrating sometimes that are a lot of questions and misconceptions about our industry, about where the food is coming from, but I don't think it's right to blame the consumer because there's just not a lot of information out there. Until recently, farmers really haven't been able to put themselves out there or just really didn't know how.
I wanted to be able to bring the dairy story to an audience that would honestly probably never see it otherwise. Because right now, I'm affiliated with two large companies on the clothing side of things, on the supplement side of things. If they didn't really have me as an affiliate, I don't think they would have any ties into the ag industry or into the dairy industry. That's really what I'm trying to do on the consumer side of just creating the conversations rather than feeling like I'm constantly preaching at them and telling them, oh, you need to be consuming dairy because everything else sucks.
It's really just allowing them to feel more encouraged to ask those questions and understanding more where their food is coming from. Then on the dairy side of things, I also really want to show that you can create a path within the dairy and ag industry in a non-traditional sense. You don't have to directly be tied to a farm or be a salesman or anything in that aspect to feel like you can share your story. More than anything, I think it's also important to just encourage everyone, but especially those in ag where it's a little bit more demanding mentally and physically sometimes that you need to take care of yourself just as much.
I know sometimes it feels a little bit tricky and maybe it almost just seems taboo sometimes within the ag industry to talk about those things. It's just as important to take care of yourself, and also be open-minded to the consumer side of things because, yes, we're mad sometimes that maybe there's a lot of misconceptions out there, but we also have to understand where they're coming from. Really just trying to tie those two together and I could talk about it forever.
Emily: No, that's great.
Joseph: I'm going to ask this because I have this argument all the time with people about the nutrition of milk. When we're talking about dairy versus some of these other things that I refuse to call milk, like almond beverage, oat beverage, soy beverage, rice beverage--
Emily: Juice.
Joseph: Yes. Those kind of things that I'm not going to call milk. I'm sure you get this question all the time, but I harp on this all the time and I think people are sick of hearing it from me. I'd love to get your take on the nutrition and the actual benefit and how healthy milk is.
Emily Shaw: Yes, for sure. When I think a lot of people maybe don't purchase milk, I don't think it's necessarily out of a place of, oh my gosh, I hate milk. I don't want to consume this. Honestly, a lot of the marketing of those other juices and beverages are just a little bit more modern and I think they just stand out a little bit more, and unfortunately, a lot of people maybe don't understand the importance of protein and nutrients. When they see something that's super duper low-calorie like almond juice or anything in that aspect, I think that's what really draws them to it.
A lot of times when people are purchasing those products, fortunately, I still see them purchasing things like Greek yogurt or cheese. Luckily, it's not necessarily either-or situation, but it's both. On the milk side of things, what I really try to show is, it's a high-quality protein. It's an affordable source of protein. It's very easily digestible and absorbed by your body and it's high in non-essential nutrients and it can be used in a really awesome way to create a lot of different recipes and get very creative with it. I think we just have to make milk cool again and being able to show all the really cool things you can do with it.
Again, showcasing the benefits of it. Because when you look in a shelf at the store, there's nothing really that stands out on a typical milk jug that says, "Hey, I'm super healthy. I'm high-quality protein, and it's a really great bang for your buck."
Emily: All right, Bradley, it's time for you to ask something.
Joseph: Yes. You're just sitting over there all quiet.
Bradley: Yes, I guess I'm waiting.
Emily: You've been biding your time?
Bradley: That's right. I don't want to interrupt you. You have such good questions. Well, so here's my question. You had mentioned about I would guess that a majority of the people that you work with are female, correct? What about the guys in the dairy industry? Are they interested in fitness? Are they interested in this and are they willing to take part in it? If they don't, how do you get them involved?
Emily Shaw: Why I typically work one-on-one with women is just to create a little bit of a different environment within our private chats and everything like that so that's why I don't necessarily, I would say take them on as clients. I'm not generalizing any group, but typically women maybe have a little bit more pressure on them of staying away from the weight room or we need to eat low calories. Everyone should be taking care of themselves but I think women are dealing just with a little bit of different targeting with the marketing and just feeling like we need to shrink and do all these crazy things to take care of ourself.
Even with the guys and a lot of the husbands or boyfriends of the women that I work with, once they start to see these other women prioritizing themselves, eating more nutritious foods, and just growing that confidence, I think it can really carry into the rest of that relationship, and if it's a family, into that family as well. I think it can be really fun to bring it on as a lifestyle change for everyone to really incorporate it, have fun cooking recipes. Again, just not feeling ashamed for taking care of yourself. I think that's probably the biggest thing I see is people feeling selfish for taking care of their health or creating that time.
I'm sure guys deal with this as well, getting off the farm or taking that time from a job to go to the gym or cook. I just think people need to realize that if you keep pushing this off, it's eventually going to catch up to you to where you can't show up in the best way possible, whether you're female or male.
Bradley: Have you seen an interest more so during say since March or February since we got into the pandemic year of people really interested in trying to take care of their health? That's what sparked me. I've lost 31 pounds since March.
Emily: I was waiting for that to come up. I'm like, "Bradley wants to flex on his weight loss journey to Emily."
Bradley: Of course, I'm going to flex. [crosstalk]
Emily: We're very proud of you, Bradley, but we also get to make fun of you more.
Bradley: I know. I know. It got to that point where-- and some people know I travel a lot, eat bad food when you travel, or eat way too much and it has sparked interest in myself to get back on track again. Are we seeing more of that now or was there an uptick and then it's wavering off or how do we keep that momentum going?
Emily Shaw: Totally love that question. First off, congrats. That's awesome because honestly, it is tough to do. I will say it's hard for me to fully tell if that's the reason that my business has grown, just because this is really my first year in business anyways, but I will say I've seen a bigger interest, I would say on the mental side of things as well and on finding those different forms of self-care just because a lot of times, I know it can be tricky to find that motivation at home, but I think a lot of people realized just how important it is to focus on the mindset side of things just as much.
I have had a lot of people reach out to me wanting to take care of themselves because it can get really draining just being stuck in the same routine and not taking care of yourself especially when there's so much out of our control that's happening nowadays because everything that could go wrong seems to be happening in some way this past year. I think to keep that momentum going is just realizing that we don't want to necessarily have to fix your health. You want to try to be able to get ahead of the game and prevent those things from happening.
It can be a lot easier to handle all the craziness that may be happening when you physically feel your best because that can also allow you to mentally feel your best. Just realize how you're creating those habits and really make it as easy as possible within your routine and within your environment to continue those forward.
Joseph: I feel like there's probably big pieces of your job where-- and I think this happens to a lot of people that work in one-on-one situations like you do. It definitely happened to me when I was in practice. You become much more than a personal trainer to a lot of these people, I'm sure. You learn things about their life that you may or may not have wanted to know, but you become more than that. Well, walk me through how you handle that. Because this is another big piece of social media to me, is that people follow you on Instagram or on YouTube or on Facebook and they feel like they know you in a very, very personal way.
Walk me through how you handle all of that and how tough it is to also be more than a personal trainer to a lot of these people.
Emily Shaw: That is really something I try to focus on my coaching because health is more than just getting your workouts in or hitting your macros or eating better nutrition. I think a lot of people don't realize that. A lot of people may come into it strictly looking for, hey, I want to lose 10 pounds, or I want to eat less junk food, but in reality, if you don't have everything else in order within your life, you're going to find yourself stuck in this vicious cycle. It's something that I really do encourage within my coaching of asking some of those tougher questions.
Because a lot of the women I work with, there may be phases or areas of their life that they don't feel as confident in. While in other parts of their life, they're doing really well. They're succeeding. They're pushing themselves. I think it's really about encouraging women to recognize where are they holding themselves back, why are they doing this, and recognizing that usually, the biggest obstacle is you getting in your own way and talking yourself out of doing something, whether it's the lack of confidence or the lack of thinking that you were deserving of it.
I'm really just there to not be the hero of the story, but I'm here to ask those questions to allow these women to see, what am I doing that's not working for me? Why am I doing this and how can I change what I'm doing, and creating the solutions to their own problems. I just really want to be there to guide them. I think in that aspect of growing their confidence within their fitness and their training and their nutrition, a lot of that carries over into those other areas of life. It's really just allowing these women to dig a little bit deeper of maybe where some of those thoughts and limiting beliefs are coming from, and just allowing them to feel comfortable with it as well.
I never want to be someone who makes them feel silly or dumb or bad about feeling a certain way or creating certain habits, but just recognizing, well, why are those happening and what needs to be changed for you to change the direction of how that moves forward?
Joseph: I noticed when I followed you on Instagram that 90% of the posts have nothing to do with working out. They're all about making sure that people feel good mentally and having that need to working out and feeling good physically. I'm not surprised you have as many followers as you do. That's what I'm trying to say.
Emily Shaw: Thank you.
Joseph: You're welcome.
Emily: Aw, Joe. I was just going to say too, we love mental health here at The Moos Room. Emily, you know my passion for being an advocate for mental health. It is really great and refreshing for you to talk about that. I agree with Joe. That's why you're one of my favorite follows on Instagram because I can read your posts and feel good. It's so not focused on comparison and these other different things. It really is about your mindset and that really controls what happens with your body and everything else.
These two, Bradley and Joe, have heard me preach about this forever, and the idea of whole wellness, so mental, physical and emotional, and the way that they're all really intertwined with each other. I think it's so great that you attack it from all of those angles because that's important for any part of life, whether it's a fitness journey, feeling good about yourself, on the farm, dealing with relationships and family, all of it. I think it's great.
Joseph: Can we pivot and talk about something that brings joy to a ton of people, food. What I've noticed, especially I think even just yesterday or two days ago, you were making maple bacon waffles and they looked delicious. I think food is one of those things that brings joy to a lot of people, including myself. I love food. I think there's a misconception in a lot of places that you have to eat only leafy greens, all these things that don't taste good, and that's the only way you're going to lose weight. Reassure me that I can still eat my good foods and get on the same wavelength as Bradley and lose some weight.
Emily Shaw: This can definitely happen. I think it's important to remember, and something that I really try to talk about with our clients is in any way you reach a goal, the way that you're going to make that most successful is reaching that goal in a way that you feel that you can keep going with moving forward. Something that is realistic and sustainable for you, because sure, anyone can lose weight by just eating salads, but are you realistically going to be able to keep that forever as a thing within your diet and within your lifestyle?
Probably not. When looking at it with the ladies I work with, we like to look at the 80/20 approach to where, for the most part, yes, you probably should be focusing on whole nutrient-dense foods, high-quality proteins, meat, dairy, eggs, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, things like that, but the other 20% is when you can fit those fun foods in because like you've said, those can be the things that bring in the joy. Those can be the things that you can create those memories around or go out on a date night or make it sustainable.
I just think it's so important to recognize there's no good and bad foods. What I really want to teach is you want to be able to incorporate the things you enjoy, but you should want to prioritize a lot of those more nutritious foods because in reality, that's just probably when you're going to feel your best. Yes, no good and bad. You have to find ways that make this sustainable for you, which probably means a pizza night every now and then. Yesterday my boyfriend and I went to Sonic and he got this ginormous chili cheese dog, and I got Popcorn Chicken.
Emily: Love it. Everything in moderation.
Joseph: Well, that's good to hear that. That just makes me feel a little better. I think that is a lot of the issue with most people, myself included, is the sustainability of it. You can get on track and be on track for quite a while, but when you don't allow yourself to have pieces of that joy or what you did before, like you said, you can fall off and that's why you see all these new year resolutions mid-February just not rolling anymore, but it's good to hear. Good to hear.
Emily: It's that all-or-nothing mindset. Because I used to have that and it didn't work and then I started following Dairy Girl Fitness and now I've got my crap figured out.
Emily Shaw: I try.
Joseph: The other thing I wanted to talk about, and we talked about this a few episodes ago. We had Amber Roberts on to talk about the women in Ag Network. One of the things that we talked about, it got a little heavy for The Moos Room, some of the things we were talking about in that podcast, but one of the things she said is, we need people to pull other people along with them. It takes someone very extroverted and out there to do that, to say, I'm going to this meeting, why don't you come with me, and bring people out of their shell.
Can you give Bradley and I some advice as men on how to best do that with some of the women that we see in ag that are amazing pieces of it and may not be confident in their skills as much as they should be because they are talented individuals in the ag business?
Emily Shaw: I totally feel that to where sometimes you just need to be able to lead by example. I think it's about potentially creating those opportunities and having the conversations with them to where you don't want them to feel called out or potentially put on the spot, but maybe create those opportunities that they're able to meet other people, meet other women who are in similar positions who maybe just stepped out of that comfort zone or who are willing to get a little bit uncomfortable and just show where that can go.
I think it's about finding those things to relate to, to where a lot of women or anyone maybe sees someone, it's like, "Wow, I would love to be where they're at, but they just must be better than me. They just must be lucky." Or anything like that. Trying to help these women realize that just about anyone in a position that you want to be in or any opportunity that you want to get into, I think a lot of the people struggle with very similar mindsets and very similar obstacles. Just helping them realize that they're not alone to feel uncomfortable or scared or nervous that they're not accomplished enough, but also allowing them to reflect on all the things that they've already accomplished to just get to where they're at now. I think potentially creating that network for them to communicate with other people in the shoes and how they can move forward within similar footsteps.
It is tough, but I think again, just creating more opportunities for women to connect, which I've seen a lot more within social media now with different Facebook groups, different Instagram groups, and conferences. Allowing women to potentially find that and just know that do not try to make them fit a mold or fit a box, but you truly are, like you said, just able to recognize their skills and want them to be able to feel more confident about showcasing them.
Joseph: You can't see it out there, but Emily just took a drink from a gigantic water bottle, an absolutely gigantic water bottle. I think we have to talk about it. Tell me about water and staying hydrated. Where does that all play in?
Emily Shaw: This is a half-gallon water bottle. This is one of the popular brands that you'll probably see on social media, HydroJug, but it's just very helpful to help you stay hydrated. That's just a simple thing that many people overlook and that just ties into health in general to where you don't have to make an entire overhaul of your entire life, but start making those smaller choices, and one of those being water. Start drinking more water. Stop drinking as much coffee, as much sugar, and as much soda that probably a lot of people do.
It can just be a great way to help you probably feel fuller longer, stay hydrated so you mentally can feel your best. You can physically feel your best. It can help with regularity. It just again ties into some of those small changes that you can make that can really then snowball into some of those bigger effects. I do recommend you can probably drink more if you just get a really big water jug and you literally carry it with you everywhere. It's always going to be in your face and it's just going to be staring at you and you're like, "I need to drink more water."
Emily: My HydroJug is arriving tomorrow. I finally gave in. I was like, "I need one."
Joseph: I've noticed that for sure having a really big container. I have a massive water bottle as well. It reminds you that I've only drank this much today and I need to get through the rest of that. I noticed it. I used to lift real heavy. The days that you're trying to lift heavy and you know you didn't get enough water, you notice immediately. It's super important. Something related to that, well, we're talking about a lot of things not in the weight room, not in our workouts that affect everything is sleep. I notice that too. I don't have a whole lot of control over it right now because I have a six-month-old, but tell me how important sleep is, and then one day I'll get back there.
Emily Shaw: Sleep is something very often overlooked. I totally understand within some situations it may just be harder to come by. I have some new moms within my coaching as well, and I'm not going to be the one to harass them about getting more sleep when in reality it's just maybe not super realistic right now, but for those who are a little bit more in control of their sleep, it is just so important for you to mentally feel your best and physically feel your best. I think within today's society, it's almost like a badge of honor to function on less sleep, when sure, maybe you get more things done, but in reality, that's really going to catch up to you to where you are not mentally as sharp.
You're probably crabby. You just may not want to get as much work done. You'll probably be less productive. Lower sleep can increase your hunger. It can make recovery worse. If you're trying to gain muscle or get stronger, that's going to be harder. It can make it harder to lose weight or lose fat. Just all around, it's placing more stress on your body, which probably stresses you out, which then impacts your sleep. It's just about realizing all of these things tie together towards not just the workouts and the nutrition, but it's about taking care of yourself and prioritizing that time for yourself.
Again, I know it's a little bit tricky, but it's more so just thinking of creating better sleep habits rather than feeling like you have to strictly get eight hours every single night.
Joseph: It's tough. We all have noticed as you have more going on in your life, sleep becomes less prioritized than it probably should be. I want to talk to you about, we talk a lot about weights, or we've mentioned weights, we've mentioned the weight room, we've mentioned that kind of stuff a lot. I personally hate cardio. I hate it. I hate it so much. We haven't talked about it.
Emily: Yes, we can tell.
Joseph: Thanks. Thank you. All right.
Emily: I love you, Joe.
Joseph: Yes. I can tell from your comments. Tell me how it plays a part. I know I should do it. I probably should do it more. I think people don't recognize how important lifting weights is for losing weight and getting in shape. Walk me through how much cardio should I actually be doing so I can motivate myself. I've got a professional telling me I really should, so maybe it'll stick this time.
Emily Shaw: I think more than people just strictly thinking, hey, I have to go to the gym every day and get on the elliptical for 30 minutes. More than that kind of cardio, I think what's even more important is just getting more movement in throughout your day. I think a lot of people underestimate just going out for walks, getting up, and walking around the office, because in reality, those type of daily activities make up a bigger portion of, let's say, your overall calorie expenditure than those strict workout sessions of weight training and cardio.
More than strictly focusing on cardio or thinking that needs to be something you do every day, I encourage people to just start getting more movement in throughout your day in general. I know people look at the 10,000 steps as like this gold standard, but be realistic and meet yourself where it's at. 7,000 to 8,000 steps can be a really great place to aim for. Once you feel confident with that, I would start to look at increasing there. When you're questioning how much cardio should I be doing, it just comes down to how many steps or what does my activity look like throughout the day and how can I really just encourage myself to bump that up, whether it's morning walks, lunchtime walks, walking around the office or anything in that aspect.
Of course, if someone's training for a race or something like that, specific cardio can be very helpful. Cardiovascular health is important anyways, but I think the most realistic spot for people to start is honestly just getting up and moving more through the day.
Bradley: What about rest days? What about rest days? Should we take a rest day? Some people, they want to do it so fast and they've got to work out seven days a week and they don't see anything. Is rest important too?
Emily Shaw: Yes. Trying to work out seven days a week is a fast track to burnout. Again, to reach any goals and to make this a lifelong thing, again, it has to be done in a sustainable way. I know sometimes we forget that your health is literally for the rest of your life and what you do now is going to affect that. It's about realizing that this is not supposed to make you feel stressed and tired and sore all the time. Training and nutrition is supposed to help you feel strong, energized, and ready to go. I usually like to take two rest days.
I recommend that someone at least has one. There are some ladies who also have maybe three rest days, four rest days, but it's about being realistic with your schedule so you can keep that going. If you can only get three days in, that's fine. If you can get four days in, that's awesome. No matter who you are, what you're doing, I recommend taking at least the one to two rest days because again, your body will not be able to function if it's constantly being torn down, which is technically what working out is. If the goal is to build muscle mass or maintain muscle mass or get stronger, your body is doing that when you are taking those rest days.
Joseph: I want to know more about you, Emily, and I think what people probably want to know is they've already learned that my problems are that I hate cardio and I love food. What's the workout, what's the exercise that you just dread, that you just don't want to do? For some people it's squats. For some people, they hate deadlifting. What is it for you?
Emily: Who could hate deadlifting?
Joseph: I know. I don't understand it either.
Emily Shaw: I agree. I love deadlifting. I love the heavy stuff, squats, hip thrust, anything that can grow and make my lower half stronger. I will say lunges I feel are probably one of the toughest movements for most people because it's unilateral training. This is something that a lot of our ladies get fed up with as well. It's like, oh great, more lunges programmed for us. They're great and you need to incorporate them if able, but I will say those are probably one of the toughest movements for many people and something that I probably avoid more than I should when I'm doing my own programming.
Joseph: I'm right there with you, lunges and step-ups. I'm not a fan and I never will be. Now that you're saying--
Emily: I like step-ups, but I like them because they're so miserable. Because the feeling when you're done with them it's so good.
Joseph: That jelly legs feeling is pretty sweet.
Emily: Yes. I love not being able to walk for two days after. Love it. Emily, it's been really cool to hear more about the things that you do and Dairy Girl Fitness and what coaching is like, and what being an advocate is like. I know that you did mention that you do get to work with a few brands and I know I use some of these brands too. Just really quick, why don't you give them a shout-out for us?
Emily Shaw: I work with Bowmar Nutrition. They are a supplement company. Before y'all think you need to go buy lots and lots of supplements, before you buy any sort of supplement, I'm telling you to start eating more vegetables and fruit and protein within your diet in general, and then you can look at some supplements. I work with Bowmar Nutrition. I love the company. They're third-party tested and approved, so very reliable. Then I am with Balance Athletica, which is a clothing company. Again, I just love working with these companies because I'm able to bring dairy and ag to these bigger companies that in reality would probably never see that.
That's one of my favorite parts about it and being able to create more communities and connections in that way.
Emily: That's awesome. I know it's really fun for me to see the different things that you promote and then to see how those brands promote you and the platform that promotes so much agriculture and dairy. It's this really cool feedback loop that you are able to create with your platform, which I think is awesome.
Joseph: Related to that, and this will actually be the last question. What's the piece of equipment that you have that you just couldn't be without? I know we talked about your water bottle, which is probably one of them, but other than that, if I'm trying to get myself on the right path and trying to get back into being in shape and there's something inexpensive that I should have, what is it?
Emily Shaw: Let me think. Definitely yes, water bottle. This one maybe would be controversial, but I would say a good pair of headphones. You could get not even an expensive pair, but honestly, find a way to just have fun with it. I honestly love working out and just having some little dance parties throughout it. Something like that I know it may sound like, what are you talking about? But just get some good music going and get yourself hyped up. A lot of women may feel a little bit nervous to get into a gym setting or just working out in general so putting on some good music can help you tune out everything else and really just focus on you. That is probably my next after a water bottle.
Joseph: I love that answer. I love it.
Emily: I like that.
Joseph: Music makes a huge difference, changes your mood. It's great.
Emily: When I show up to the gym and I realize I forgot my headphones, I'm just like, should I just go home? I don't, but I think that's great. I would just add as somebody who's had a lot of foot and leg injuries, good shoes. Get good shoes. Yes, you will spend some money on them, but it is worth every penny.
Emily Shaw: Agreed.
Emily: I think that that's probably a wrap there. We had a really great conversation. Joe, you're going to have so much fun editing this. Oh, my gosh. Thanks so much for being on, Emily. We appreciate it. With that, questions, comments, scathing rebuttal, you can send that to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Bradley: That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Emily: Yay. Good job, Bradley.
Joseph: Good work, Bradley. That was perfect. All right. Emily, give us your plugs run down. Where can people find you? If they need to get in contact with you because they need a personal trainer, how does that go?
Emily Shaw: You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Dairy Girl Fitness. I also have a website dairygirlfitness.com, that goes even more in-depth into what our training looks like. If you want to email me, you can email me at dairygirlfitness@gmail.com. Pretty the same throughout all those, so I should be pretty easy to find.
Emily: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I think we'll just leave the plugs at that for this week. You should know how to find us by now, and if you don't, we'll tell you in the next episode. Emily, again, thank you so much for being on, and we will catch everybody next time. Bye. The beef is real, and it is longstanding.
[00:41:24] [END OF AUDIO]
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