Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Hello you beautiful humans, I hope you're all having a spectacular day. Welcome to another week, another installment of the Virtus performance podcast. Before I get stuck into today's guest I'd like to thank everyone who's been listening so far. This is week 51 which is one week short of my goal of doing 52 podcasts in a year so and so it's a pretty cool feeling to be very very close to to this goal and I think that now I've gotten to this point now I've hit the almost hit the 52 week mark I'm shifting my goal
to the hundred to the triple digits I think it would be a bit silly and a bit maybe frustrating if I was to stop now because I'm you know finally I'm starting to build momentum and I'm starting to really every week every conversation every podcast I'm enjoying that little bit more meeting new people and talking to people I know and learning more about them so in today's episode I sat down with Amanda Connell who is the the brains behind holistic hikes which is a holistic obviously holistic because it's called holistic hikes is a holistic health
nutrition business which a coaching business which has been designed has been founded to bring people more in touch with the outdoors and to allow people the to give people the empowerment or to empower people to I guess take control of their health and well-being and nutrition and and things like that and to do an environment that is I guess perfect for connection and and growth and learning in in the outdoors so we spoke about Amanda's journey about why she does what she does about the things that drive her and we are we went a little
off track and spoke about the health industry in the and I guess the the way things have been done and the fact that the way things have been done might not necessarily be the best way of things going forward so we're really good conversation about health happiness mindfulness nutrition and learning and I'm really really excited for you guys to meet her so enjoy my personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day I believe everyone especially normal people have a story to tell the Virtus podcast exists to help us all
find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the journey and experiences of each of our guests Amanda good morning welcome to the podcast thank you it's nice to have you on after meeting you last week yeah it was very fantastic meeting Mary meeting in the mine would you say last week you wanted we should have just recorded that chat instead so today's just gonna be a repeat of that conversation hopefully a little better sure yeah a little more fun first question for you what gets you out of bed in the morning well generally it's my
husband with a pot of coffee yeah awesome I like I guess my passion and my drive to really help others from the way that I've seen my own healing happen you know through nature therapy through nutrition so yeah it's really really driven to sort of help others with a holistic health and getting their life sort of in balance because it is it's a bit of a shit fight every day oh yeah it is what what does that word mean to you when you say holistic what do you mean because I think it's one of the
buzz words it's kind of throwing out everybody so to me it's holistic is all encompassing so it's our mind our body and our spirits so in order to have balanced health we need to consider social emotional environmental factors as well as nutrition so that we really find that balance because you can have a great diet but if your mindset is off and you've got a really negative self talk within yourself you're still going to have sort of disease there disease of the mind disease disease of the gut so yeah have you always been someone who
looks at the world holistically and looks at health holistically no not always I it probably started for me about 16 years ago when I was a young mom so I was 20 and I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes anemia calcium deficiency and my doctors sat there and read out prescriptions yeah and I was pretty confronted with that because I was never really wanted to take medication but I thought you know this there's got to be a natural way to do this so through my own research and self-education I sort of you know stumbled upon that
you know the holistic sort of world as you would say and yeah and found you know my healing through through nutrition so take us back into if you can a little bit into the might like the mindset then of going like well but all these things we've got to deal with the doctors I guess first port of call is medication medication medication yeah what was the process like to I guess turn away from that and move towards the holistic route I think that I just I don't I didn't see that the fix and appeal like
I've just didn't it was just something that didn't sit with me and you know again the whole holistic approach is it's so innate it's from within you and it's finding the balance because it looks different for everybody so I guess again you know to answer your question the process for me was I just didn't sit comfortably and I had to discover why so I've always sort of been really inquisitive about things yeah and so I sort of just started reading about you know calcium deficiency what do I need to do what foods do I need
to eat I've never really been a big dairy consumer but then I found that was the calcium is through other food and you definitely need to get that so it's sort of you know stepping away from main street marketing of where you should derive your you know calcium vitamin D and etc from yeah yes a lot of self-education and then just follow that through yeah found that I found the solutions to my own problems without having to fill out script so that was it's pretty yeah so many people I guess passion and drive comes from
dealing with stuff themselves what was your first point of call in terms of like where did you find that information where did you go to find how about calcium deficiencies and gestation diabetes and things like that where'd you look okay so I guess you know the internet wasn't really as much as what it is now it wasn't a little diaries that sort of does that sorry not diaries it was the library I was looking into my brother was a chef at some stage so I sort of went through a lot of his old books my
mum was a nurse so again pulling out like you know some of the the books that sort of she had on the bookshelf and just sort of being really interested in finding you know how how our body works and and yeah sort of it was a lot of books and I still enjoy books now and folding pages rather than sort of just everything was definitely somewhere something we bonded over last week yeah yeah and the actual book yeah yeah I do I really enjoy books the smell that the feel and just to have them on
my bookshelf and be able to go back and reference them and doggy pages and it's just something that if I'm a little bit lost I can pick it up again and very cool sort of go back to so that's yeah that's where it started I like that where did where did it progress from there so obviously being a young mom at 20 must be a big change yeah yeah it's very big change so in more ways than just nutritionally yeah it was it was a pretty turbulent relationship that I was into so again you know
my my mental health sort of suffered and over the years I did end up with adrenal fatigue so that was again you know sort of educating myself I did think naturopaths nutritionists and sort of sparked that that interest in studying a little bit further just to see how I could help myself through eating well you know kind words and what it was like you know getting out in nature that was always something for me that I would always just sort of do that to sort of detox or if I was like oh I just gonna
walk it off I'm yeah go for a walk and find that and it makes you feel better yes and I started to find your I guess peace and comfort from nature yeah it's awesome so you went off and studied after well I studied the certificate of nutrition awesome I was looking at doing a university degree or other in dietetics or nutrition however I sort of found this coaching solution and I find that for me people's answers are within them so as a dietitian or a nutritionist sometimes they sort of dictate what people should do and
go here's a plan for you this is what I think you should do based on what you told me yeah whereas with coaching it's really a lot of motivational interviewing and it's teasing out the answers from within that person they actually arrive at their own solutions they're more likely to you know instigate that change because they've come up with their own solutions so to me I find that coaching in my favorite you know environment being out in nature is just ideal solution that's right yeah it's super cool it's really it's a really interesting I guess
point you brought up about individuals who are passionate about certain subject going off to uni and doing a topic and then being taught the same stuff as everyone else being taught coursework and curriculum which is important and necessary for most most degrees but then they're there you lose that sense of autonomy and sense of being able to question whether it's right or wrong yeah and never actually for most for the most part obviously like you've been able to experience it and actually learn by doing but like we certainly get a lot of internship students in
that haven't necessarily experienced the things they're teaching yes and I think you tend to go most people go full circle with uni they go in having a passion and having tried things and seeing what works seeing what doesn't being taught the taught the this straight straight narrow straight down the train tracks way of thinking and then after uni they kind of go full circle back to the trying and learning and things like that with that added knowledge and I think that's a really important thing to discern that you like or thing they've identified is the
fact that you being able to coach and educate and I guess mentor your clients into actually making the decisions themselves and coming to the answers themselves and figuring out what's wrong because when we understand what's going on with ourselves it doesn't necessarily we don't actually need to just follow the book in terms of nutrition and health and things like that because everyone's different yeah I agree we're all unique and we need to and we're all the same at the same time I think yeah in some aspects was certainly the same but I think that you
know nutrition people have certain issues that you know they can't eat certain foods they can only can't definitely and even mentally people have got different barriers and challenges they've got to work around yeah it's definitely a different approach to everybody what do you feel is a is the biggest I guess barrier to behavior change do you think it's mindset or do you think it's like knowledge and understanding it can be a bit of both so people have limiting self-belief so one of the things that we work through our values so people can sort of determine
where their values have come from are they you know from their family their upbringing or is it something that they've carried through socially environmentally so our values that come from everywhere so I really I like to sort of strip it back down and all these sort of worksheets and things like that I've worked through myself as well through the course of my time yeah and reevaluated because at different points in your life you've got different values and different beliefs and that's okay to change I don't think that ever anyone should just be you know stagnant
or stubborn and just have the same beliefs I think that you know if we're forever learning we're forever educating ourselves then our belief systems are going to change so again yeah I think it's people's limiting self beliefs a lot of people don't know how to motivate themselves you know again it's whether they're intrinsically motivated or whether it's an external factor whether they you know driven by rewards so determining what's right for each person I can sort of then have you had people that you have struggled to work with yes I would to actually help them
get to where they want to get to yes certainly and I reflect that on you know as well that's my abilities that's my learning I need to learn new and different ways to adapt to people that are difficult that are you know hesitant to change because people like to sort of you know be comfortable where they are at people change people generally don't say yes it's it's sort of just trying to find what will motivate them to change yeah you know and I guess an example of that would be you know people that have like
fad diets that have just tried and recirculating of that time so it's trying to provide an education about reframing the simplistic approach to nutrition and it's not about whether you're paleo keto or this or that it's just simplified like what is the basis of what we need nutritionally and and then it encapsulating that in the holistic side so what you know what's their mental social environmental factors that wrap around that for them yeah yeah I mean it's certainly challenging people but as I said it's something that I need to yeah coaches always go back to
okay I need to fix myself to help them which is really just a real like it's a really interesting show of like who you are and the fact that you look inward before you look out which I think is really cool one of my favorite books is mindset by Carol Dweck have you read it no really simply it's it's people split into two categories you're either growth growth mindset or fixed mindset the growth mindset of the people that want to figure out they're wrong and want to learn the new way and fixed mindset obviously it's
just they're stuck in that self-fulfilling prophecy of I can't change because of this this isn't this and they never do and it's a really really interesting it's really interesting look at the human psyche and and to how important mindset is to actually improving and growing and I like we we encountered clients more often than we would like that are in that fixed mindset and you try and teach them and and they just don't want to listen and I'm sure he wouldn't mind me talking about it but laughs he did a whole podcast about so he
wouldn't mind but a couple weeks ago Josh cause I was on a podcast someone who was a client of ours to you a couple years ago and was impossible to coach just wouldn't listen yeah and he's kind of going on this little journey of self-discovery and awareness and now yeah he listens and he understands that he doesn't know everything and he's someone that I've seen shift from that kind of fixed mindset to the growth mindset but it just it just takes time he's not there yet like he's definitely like yeah like I'm not there yet
so like there's definitely no we're never there which is a frustrating but when I make it I'll be happy right but when this happens I'll be happy um what are the what are the education I guess tools or things that you use to help people shift from that fixed to that growth mindset or what are the what are the ways you would you deal with it I guess there's a lot of different tools I guess that you can use there we use a little measures I guess in coaching so you can sort of measure whether
at and go through sort of just trying to find the word sorry yeah I guess you know sort of just measure where they're at and where they've gone sometimes if they self-reflect and they've seen that they've made a little bit of a change that can most motivate them they sort of get this little spark and they can sort of keep driving them forward see one little win yeah it's sort of gauging things like that that's cool I just realized we haven't actually talked about what you do properly so elevator pitch it can be a long
elevator ride pitch what you do to everyone that has no idea if you just meet someone on the street and I say hey what do you do load up okay so I'm a nutrition and health coach and I deliver my sessions hiking in nature to reap the benefits of everything that our environment you know particularly here on the Monty Peninsula has to offer it's not the worst part of the world no it's not certainly not so any of our sessions can be run from Beach Beach sessions yeah bush sessions and there's a little bit of
information that I provide along the way about the benefits of walking in nature sorry that's it's pretty cool because I think it's when Beck my sister first told me about you I was like that is a really cool idea because I I'm someone that loves getting out and experiencing just the world around us through travel and and through just little hikes even you know the park out the back of the gym like so half an hour walk around that those three football levels and I feel like a different person so why did you why did
you decide to take the plunge with this idea and where did it all come from okay sorry just a whole lot of self-belief and my husband motivating me to actually do what I say that I you know that's again it's really good to have someone you know that that sees something in you and sees you it shares your vision you know sort of motivates you as well so really yeah decided to push forward with the nutrition and you know combine it with the nature therapy because I mean from my own personal experience over the years
I've really had some quite turbulent years of dealing with close family members with depression yeah anxiety self-harm and then just recently cancer so it's just something that's I found in in dealing with it I've helped them obviously nutritionally but then just getting out in nature and walking and hiking it lowers your blood pressure you know it's just like so many benefits that it's just like I don't understand what people aren't doing so to me ideally like this business was incorporating the two things that I'm most passionate about and doing it for a living yeah that's
pretty just yeah and you it's awesome because you like you're filling a gap because I don't think it seems like a very simple idea right and I think that's almost like the cool thing about it is it's such a it's such a basic simple idea hey let's go out and have a conversation about what you blocked on or what you're struggling with or where you want to get to let's do it outside in a really cool environment yeah it's such a it's such a simple simple thing to look at what is do you find some
clients or some people you talk to you are you met with resistance from them or do they just like kind of go that's awesome let's do it oh I think that they can be certainly resistance particularly with winter so I've sort of just written a post about the winter blues and they're sad so which is your seasonal affective disorder so that's just more about like how you know we're treating doors we're not getting the sunshine we're not getting our vitamin D levels so melatonin is thrown out we're not sleeping as well which affects your mood
you know you serotonin levels decreased so it's just there's just so many it's tenfold you know effects like just not getting out in nature so yeah yeah I'm certainly met with some resistance all my you know clients that actually go through intake process with them first to make sure that they are clear for it yeah got first aid asthma things like that so there's a lot of people have been like oh you know is it a big high cover I do sure it's really gentle walks I've definitely got some more challenging hikes for anyone that
came but it is just more or less a gentle walk talking walking in nature yeah and you know the really cool thing about holistic hikes is that you know when you're walking and you're talking and you're like really trying to overcome obstacles or challenges or fun solutions it engages both the left and the right side of your brain so you sort of you know you thinking logically and more creatively as well so it's pretty cool it's something simple but to me it's just something that I'm I know it works for me so it can work
for other people yeah and that's the cool thing I tend to find that I like writing in and kind of sharing my experiences obviously started podcasts and stuff but I like writing the stuff I'm struggling with because I figured like yes we're all unique snowflakes but we're also very similar in a lot of different ways and I think if I'm struggling with it there's a good chance that a fair chunk of the population struggling especially the people that are in similar positions and doing things the same same way I am so I think it's really
cool that you're able to take your experiences and your learnings and your development and go I want to help other people where do you see yourself taking it over the next 6, 12, 18 months yes certainly look I've got some grand plans so I think that I'll fine-tune them but I certainly see you know some I've got mindfulness walks gratitude hikes I really want to do some some work and some collaboration with some local businesses I think that's just something fun but yeah I just I think that you know there is no ceiling on these
I think that just keep expanding keep writing down ideas and and growing it because yeah I think once you've sort of create a cap then you're any captain you say yeah it's cool this can go global yeah can yeah oh I'm already thinking about like international like big hiking weekend weeks and big trips and so high it's pretty cool well I think we're talking about that in Poland so definitely yeah yeah connection so I can sort of facilitate some really awesome hikes over there and I've got some Sherpas all lined up that's the dream Sherpas
lined up have you done a lot of travel overseas in the show I actually didn't travel until about six years ago my first overseas trip was to Nepal and I hacked the Annapurna region which was just mind-blowing definitely put me out of my comfort zone but I think that something that just yet really makes you grow but that was yeah that was amazing and then since then I've sort of we've traveled to Bali done mannequin which is the climb to the summit there yeah which is actually a volcano um it didn't erupt no I didn't
erupt but I did get proposed to so that was yeah so like my husband's pretty outdoorsy type as well yeah good so we've got some pretty cool things planned in the future with our kids and everything so cool how many kids you have? Three daughters. How old? They're 8 almost 10 and 16. Awesome big handful? Yeah, incredibly. He does really well though. Thanks man. Four on one that must be tough. Yeah yeah he's a very strong man so I think it's it's a solid man that can deal with four women. True, very true. Three sisters I know I know how he feels.
Talk to me about about how you found your love for nature is it something that you grew up with is it something that has happened over the last few years how did you fall in love with the outdoors? Yeah sure so as a kid I grew up with two older brothers and my grandparents had a farm up in Heathcote which my parents now live on so there was lots of sheep, dams, creeks, motorbikes then we were sort of always outdoors both my parents work camps for camp leggings for underprivileged kids through the Lions Club yeah
so that was pretty cool we were sort of exposed to abseiling and rafting and you know some pretty cool outdoorsy stuff so I'm very natural like that love the environment just you know and challenging so yeah I've always been around nature we've had our farm up in Heathcote which is beautiful and always the Donna coast so really got to enjoy both the country and the more independent love what it is so yeah and then yeah as I got older it was more about hiking and traveling and seeing all the other green spaces everywhere else that's
pretty cool that's super cool it's a big world and it's um there's so many it's really interesting because I think a lot of I find a lot of people I know try and go overseas to and I can't really talk because I've just been overseas but go overseas to experience these amazing places but forget how many amazing places we have an hour back out yeah like from Grampians to the ranges to graduation rates graduation road to Wilson's prom to like just the peninsula like it's you don't have to go very far to get outside and
go for a walk and one of the things that a good friend of mine's told me albeit with a little bit of resistance for me is just walking slowly and I'm always like going from one place to another and and moving quickly like I think I ran past you before maybe walk slowly when it was like yeah and it's it's something that I try and remember whenever I'm outside just to walk slowly and be mindful be mindful of what I'm doing and this is a very long-winded question but I knew where I was going with
it what is mindfulness to you because I think it's a word like like holistic that's thrown around a lot and it's kind of a buzzword at the moment but what does that mean to you mindfulness to me is connecting lately so internally with all your senses your five senses which then engages your six so you know the touch they've seen dead people well I can do that depends on the movie but you know it's really about you know the sights the smells and what you're feeling and sort of what you can touch like touching the
water touching the leaves when I'm out in nature I'll you know I'll pick off a leaf and then I'll rub it between my fingers and I smell it and I just get that warm sort of feeling inside and it's probably sounds a little bit creepy or whatever but you know it's it just there's something really engaging and I think that with mindfulness it's really about being present and and you know really connecting with all your senses to get this feeling of you know it eats and it's that's I guess it is your sixth sense like
you just your new feeling of being and being connected you know you feel so small I guess when you're out in nature and the world is just such a big place it sort of puts things into perspective so that's where I find a lot of the stress relief comes from and it's just yeah yes it's really really cool it's cool to see all the all the research into what nature does the cortisol and how we like how what it what our lives the way we live them with like phones and laptops and recording devices and
microphones and things sitting and things in front of us how how much that puts us like back from what we actually should be should be and should be doing what are the jets and tips for people that you might I guess send them off with homework things like that after hikes Jeff tips people to kind of reconnect to the environment and nature and everything outside of the four walls of the house well certainly I mean you can even do it within the four walls so you know even encouraging plants like having pot plants and succulents
you've already told me all right I'll get some plants so it's you know you can bring those plants inside your house I mean not everyone has the access to go for a bush walk every day yeah but I think just you know bringing plants into your house it will just create a happier mood and there's things like the snake tongue or the mother-in-law's tongue a sense of area I think it is I think I just you know the word for it but that's not but that's like a really good air purifier not particularly yeah I'm
telling bedrooms and things like that I think too and he's just setting some rules with yourself as far as like how you want to engage with social media don't go to bed at night with your firing like maybe leave it out of the bedroom if you can't leave it out of the bedroom give yourself five minutes I think I read the same thing from your post but you know give yourself a time limit I'm gonna do this and stick to it because I think that yeah you can sort of get sucked into just that scrolling
and this and that oh yes sort of really being mindful of how much time you're spending on it I think there's some apps now didn't track how much time you're spending on your social media so you can get a bigger picture because you don't necessarily realize how many times that you just open that app sorry and if you if you're on your iPhone now or listening to this if you go into if you go into your settings and then go into battery you can actually look at your battery usage since last time you charge it
and see what you've actually been doing and how much time you've spent so if you click on last seven days and then put the camera the camera the little clock up you can see how much time you spent on each different app in the last which is very confronting that's just the iPhone it's just the iPhone yeah I assume Android to do the same thing but it just shows you how much time it's been on screen and how much time it's been on the background so when you know when you look at it and you've
got 40 minutes of Facebook a day it's there's 40 minutes when we tell ourselves we don't have enough time and that was my actual 40 minutes a day which is rubbish I need I need to fix that over the last week of every 40 minutes on Facebook to Facebook a day that's horrible I tell myself excuses like I'm pushing business content stuff but mostly it's scrolling and stuff takes five minutes at a time you know it's really I guess being honest with yourself and finding what you're doing and where you do have the time again
and yeah you know another tip I guess - you were saying we with really sort of reconnecting with nature something I I do quite often I run around barefoot so when I'm out pegging out the washing I've got my feet directly connected to the earth it might sound pretty hippie it's definitely try it yeah I can sound hippie but it's yeah it's I can vouch for that from a movement point of view and from a proprioception point of view it's huge like like I use I tell most of our clients most of the time take
their shoes off for whatever we're doing and there's always a couple that you may know with a little resistance and I kind of use the examples if you put your hand in a fist and wrapped your hand up for 90% of the day how well do you think your fingers would work and it's when the ground is the one or sorry your feet are the one place where we're in contact with the ground most of the time if we have a an unproperative environment there then everything up the chain isn't gonna work as well and
yeah and if we're able to take shoes off for an hour two hours three hours a day and actually get moving every muscle bone joint your foot starts to move a little bit more efficiently which means everything up the chain is gonna move more efficiently which means you're gonna end up with a like a really proprioceptive environment yeah it's a foundation to like everything and you know apart from having to clean the dirt out it's a really nice feeling having dirt and sand and things like that between your toes there's just so many nutrients in
that dirt so embrace it yeah exactly yeah enjoy it and that's it's something that you know we've kind of in the 21st century age of technology we've kind of gone away from just that connection with the earth but it's like everything you know we're as far as you grow that way you need to counterbalance it so you need to find that balance and it's finding that balance in everyday life as well as well as you know yeah the balance of technology so I'm not anti technology but I think that everything in moderation and there needs
to be some real balance yeah it's just finding that for me it just comes back to awareness and I think like if I'm aware that I'm in shoes most of the day then I'll do my best to when I get my clients to take it off for it for a group class I'll take mine off as well or you know if I know I've been if I know like Thursdays for me is usually a big office day so I know that if I'm in the office all day I need to go out for a walk
or you know catch up with someone for coffee or something that's going to get me out of my current environment because I think as humans I think we suffer the most I'm working on a blog post around this but I see a little bit to go but we suffer the most when we do the same things over and over again we suffer the most through repetition so if we do the same gym session every day we're gonna suffer because we're not going to improve if we eat the same foods every day we're gonna suffer because
we're not eating a wide variety of nutrients so so yeah that's kind of I'm working on a little little post about that because I think it's really important to to pat and interrupt your day and do something different yeah because have we get stuck into habits like whether it's a good habit like like going for a walk outside with no shoes on or whether it's bad habit like scrolling our phone we get stuck into habits I think when we're mindful and aware of those habits we can make a decision one way or the other whether
we want to do more or less of it yeah definitely and drive the good ones and drive the good ones that's exactly right I don't want to delve too deep into it because I think it's a topic that is really hard to talk about for a lot of people but what have been for the people that you see and like I can talk about the times we've seen at the gym what are the what are the benefits from movement and walking and getting outside on things like depression and anxiety what do you see because we
get like we can talk about the science and things behind it but from a that's right phone calls happen all the time I turn my vibration off it's the best yes I've done missed calls all the time what have you what have you seen in terms of benefits both physiologically and psychologically from in terms of depression and mental illness from people that you are able to go out walks with and talk to over your time doing what you're doing yeah certainly sorry I think just you know just that gentle walk again you find that people
once they're out walking it's so it's like an automatic response people have to think about walking you know obviously in the gym it's a little bit different the exercises they've got to think about it and like me I'm so uncoordinated walking to really simple automated activity yeah so again you know when you're engaging that sort of coaching in that environment and we're just talking and walking people do become more mindful again that you know directly correlates to the improved mood they're you know like aware of their surroundings and and yet again you know there's a
scientific backings behind it which lowers blood pressure it suppresses a sympathetic nervous system so as far as the flight and flight response mode and sort of makes you feel a lot more balanced and calm so I think you know in the long term of walking so one of my family members who was diagnosed with cancer recently she's oh good but you know getting out and walking with her so it was like sort of just a three kilometers a day and yeah it was you know England there's still cars around and things like that but she's
out in nature she's around the trees her moods improved her ability to deal with stressful situations has improved very cool in conjunction with nutrition a lot of the food that she's you know it's based on what she's already been eating but fine-tuning it to just you know improve immunity to improve things like that so I think that yeah I've certainly seen some changes just from the walking aspect it just there's just so many things and so many benefits that it really gives them and it's such a simple task and you know they feel great afterwards
they don't necessarily know why they feel great and whether we're having a really in-depth conversation about challenges or we're just having a conversation that's quite jovial and light-hearted yeah you know you come back you feel a little invigorated you've got you know cool wind on your face and just feel you know you've just you know you've pumped up your heart rate a little bit but you know to a healthy level and yeah everything moving it's not yeah from one thing you have to do another or it's not through a shopping center or it's not like
that it's actually yeah and I think it's just yeah again it's just that movement and it's automated and simple but it's really effective it must be cool kind of going full circle a little bit to being the young mom 16 years ago who's being I guess have all these prescription put in front of you and go on and learn about yourself and the human body and and how we can better approach some of those issues to now being that person that people come to to help them improve those issues with them certainly yeah no it
is it's it's amazing I just you know it's like I'm really passionate about and when people meet me up can be a little bit you know it's the best way I like to call it the basis but I am I am I'm very passionate I'm I love what I do you and yeah if I can just help one person like Henry have you know it's cool if I can help one person that's all I want to do like just even the simplest thing if I don't need to make the biggest change in their life but
if it's something simple as getting out and just improving their mood a little bit yeah you know they're more likely to go and do it again for themselves whether it's with me or without me like I just think that I'd be able to impart some sort of knowledge and insight and your passions contagious because people will see how much you love how love you how much you love it all and they'll either do it with you or go and do it themselves or want to go do it like right now I just wanna go for
a walk outside you take your shoes off and I'll just carry I'll just carry the laptop with me but where's it going with that I was gonna ask you a question shit I forgot oh well oh I was gonna ask you about do you think doctors rightly or wrongly are too quick to just throw prescriptions at people I have any experience in GP clinics yeah I do but sadly their education in there however many years of schooling so say six years of schooling they've probably got one day one hour on nutrition it's crazy and that
nutrition education is so outdated probably working off a 1970s food pyramid which is completely wrong you know so I think that there needs to be more education on nutrition and a plant-based diet definitely benefits of whole foods rather than sort of you know prescribing medications yeah something that can be like myself that I've had the experience with you know easily overturned I mean obviously some things are a little bit more serious and then you you know then you got this I'm not dismissing their whole professional field yeah I feel like there needs to be more
education with GPS at school level yeah I think one of the things that like closely it's this is something this is a topic that I talk about a lot with my staff and friends and family because it's something I'm really passionate about I think the medical industry and like surgical industry all has its place because it's it's there to fix things when things go wrong fix things when things go bad when there's serious diseases that happen or diseases or injuries or whatever happened for certain reasons that it's there for that reason I think we've kind
of used rather than using it as a first as a with you yeah as a last point of call sorry we've used as a first point of call and we've it's created a society where we have a little coffee or the doctors we get a little bit a little bit of a call we want we want antibiotics we want to fix it now we want that quick fix whereas we know that like as my health professionals you know that doesn't work and it's really interesting because I think I think we're asking because we talk about
things like only going doing nutrition for you know a day or half a day in their degree and I've lucky enough to have a couple of really close friends just finish finish their medical degrees and now they're out working and things like that and I think we kind of miss the miss the point a little bit because I think doctors are there to treat illnesses and diseases and injuries and things like that and surgeons are there to fix certain things but we I think there should be a whole new profession that's there to determine who
someone should go and see and like that's just a recipe for corruption but that's beside the point I'm living in a utopian mindset right now where everything works perfectly but I think there should be some sort of person or profession that you know someone's got an issue they're they're seen to have nutrient deficiencies or or they've got a strained calf muscle or they've they are genuinely sick or they've dislocated their shoulder who's able to tell that person who they should go and see because right now it's just everyone goes to a doctor and like I
see clients of mine or clients of ours or like they'll say I roll my ankle on the weekend I've got it I'm seeing a GP tomorrow like why are you seeing a GP for a rolled ankle like that's physio's role but I think it's education as well yeah people do just go back to the GP because they they trust that their physician is going to know yeah everything and anything and they don't yeah they don't have that sort of broad education yeah this is education about people understanding roles right like I think if you got
most people and you said what's the difference between an osteopathic chiropractor physio and a myotherapist they probably wouldn't be able to give you decent answer and it's really scary when they've got four distinct and yes they're they overlap of course which is I guess where some of the confusion comes in they've got four distinct roles and responsibilities and and outcomes you can get from going into each of those and like it's the same with nutrition right like if someone's if someone's struggling with you know fatigue or whatever they'll more quickly go to a GP to
try and find what vitamin or mineral they should be having rather than act like in tablet form rather than actually going going to a dietitian or going to someone who can actively actually actually tell them okay well here's what a balanced diet diet for you should look like yeah and I think I don't really have a solution to the problem which is the most frustrating but well you came up with you to be any solution but it's yeah yeah but yeah I don't know it's just interesting I think like in any team like I think
if you look at the health and well-being industry as a team everyone's got their role to play yeah and it's up to us as people who are saying to say to try and change the way things are done to keep pushing that and that's why I love what you're doing because it starts to it starts to culminate the importance of being outdoors with the importance of understanding you as a person yourself and then understand having that nutrition knowledge to back it up which is super cool perfect world what would you change about this is a
huge question what would you change about the health industry if you had a magic wand and could just wave it I would have complete clarity with marketing because I think that that's where everyone's confusion comes from definitely people for years it's been you know fat was bad so they put sugar in everything so it's since the dawn time it's been just one big marketing thing you don't see you know a beetroot market or a broccoli because it doesn't need to help see the maniads it's just if you're eating a whole food yeah it doesn't need
advertising it doesn't need marketing because it is what it is yeah when you're trying to sell something and trying to sell a benefit because it doesn't really have one or it's in a packet you should be really considering it yeah sorry to me yeah I would completely well I don't think I can do away with marketing because it's a necessary evil of this world but I think that it really creates a confusion and that's where I'm looking to really simplify it for people yeah yeah definitely I think wait this I don't actually don't know the
answer this question where do you get your food from are you just yeah like a farm since I don't we just yeah it's a bit of everywhere sorry I'm not gonna beat everyone up not eating organic we don't do it all the time yeah where we can we eat organic where we can't but we eat free-range chicken meat things like that it is predominantly plant-based diet I still shop at the supermarket I'm an old person yeah my husband shops half the time because he's mr. amazing you know you're like I'm not gonna beat him up
and be like hey honey we need to go get the organic broccoli from 5,000 kilometers away yeah it's you know it's about achievable everyday life so and funny how what what and at the moment we're just renovating a house so we can build a massive veggie patch and I can actually produce we can produce all our own food so very much self-sufficient like that and is that the plan yeah should be self-sufficient yeah so yeah I mean like that's that people have got busy lives and supermarkets there for a reason but it's just knowing to
like one of the services I offer is actually a supermarket to our I go around educate people what to eat I like to eat sort of you know and so give them a god list of like hey you know this is what you're currently eating and what's how to read labels like again it comes back to that question if I could change one thing it's marketing yeah because something says healthy and light and people are like great this is good for me because they've been fed that information yeah without any sort of substantial it's really
hard on because I think I think marketing has definitely got a big role to play in it and it's definitely responsible for responsible for everything that we do consume but at the same time we're all adults we can all make our own decision so like we can't just pass the buck and say it's not and I think when people like you look at that list of lists of scripts and lists of prescriptions and go you know what this isn't on like I want to change it and I want to be I want to figure out
how I can make it work then the more people that can be doing things like that from on a day-to-day basis the more this whole movement is gonna start getting legs and and start checking so I can yeah exactly exactly exactly cuz I think it's really interesting I know some conversation I got a few friends that are like vegan for a bunch of different reasons and and that you know like will be completely anti like take my coffee cups and straws and factory farming and things like that and I struggle with all of the absolutes
with all of that kind of stuff because I see the like well this is why that's a thing like this is why supermarkets exist like this is why factory farming exists and we get and I think it's gonna it's gonna be a really interesting like 10 20 years for the food health industries as we start to wade through the bullshit yeah and through all the crap of how things are produced and people actually start demanding really good quality food or demanding clarity around their food comes from that's a big one so and I think -
you know I'm again I don't I'm not an absolute anything I you know I'm all about living so I drink you know and there's things that I do yeah I'm not anti drinking I mean I love vegan I know it's looking at all the gene yeah yeah and you know and people that are that's fine I work within everyone's parameters so it's not something that I'm there to judge you and say you should eat meat you should do this my daughter's tent my 16 year old daughter turned vegan a month ago yeah and you know
it's kind of a bit of a pain in the ass to cook but hey you know what I've got to support her like but at the same time in supporting her doing that she's a 16 year old and nutritional needs that I'm you know 16 year olds really gonna listen to my mom maybe if I was like yeah but I think it's just yeah like and it's a hard position you're in kids like the last person 16 year olds can listen to you yeah but I think you know with clients that are vegan vegetarian whatever
they are you know if you're dairy intolerant this now I work within those areas to find that you make sure you know make sure you don't get the deficiencies yeah that you're then compensating with something else and and I think that that's where it all comes into yeah again it's you can make your own those guys to make their own decisions one but then like do their own research yeah and that's do their own research with maybe some peer-reviewed literature not a Peter Evans blog or something like yeah or like a 30-second video you saw
or like a five-minute YouTube video that you listen to and yeah yeah did my research cuz I think that's what front that sort of frustrates me a lot with a lot of those things like people will watch a YouTube or a Netflix documentary that's true that's purely tailored to to show one point of view and say I've done my research it's just like well you haven't also true through that you've got to look at who's funding it you know like your five five tick systems that's in supermarkets it's ridiculous so you really gonna look at
who's yeah one backing the studies and you know I think there's one of I can't remember what documentary it was one of the ones on Netflix that came out and everyone's like talking about it and then you know a bunch of scientists came out and disproved all of the things like it was a it was a health documentary I can't remember what it was because it's so so bloody many now but and they disproved everything and it's just like well like why is this thing so up if it's if we've shown that it's shown that
it's not the truth and it's really easy for people with agendas or like big businesses with agendas like Nestle or or yeah but it's a big business and that's what my you know before saying about marketing like everyone's just marking these big businesses so it's it's really self education and then that's what you know my look up myself yourself it's all about yeah educating and sharing that knowledge and yeah getting people excited and doing their own research and making their own decisions based on what's fact and I think it's like I asked myself the question
okay who stands to benefit from this like I use the example with my clients like if you go to a surgeon and ask them whether you should have surgery on your injured shoulder the surgeons probably gonna say yes if you go to a high quality physio and ask me if you should have surgery on your shoulder there's you know a good chance that physio is gonna say you know what let's see what exercise does let's see what rehabilitation does and I think when you can look at some look at it like that and go well
everyone's going to want going to think that what they offer is the best way of doing it and when you as an individual and the and the professional can look at it and say okay what's best for the client like what's better what's best for the person what's best for the individual then they can start and they understand their role in it as well they can you can start to figure out okay this is the best option option one and then we work work on option two if we need to definitely definitely and I think
I guess like why resonate with what you do so well is because you there's no absolutes it's let's let's let's go for a walk get outside that's a tick as everyone wins with that and let's have a conversation bang there's there's there's another tick is where we're learning about someone and someone's able to tell their story and someone's able to you've got that I guess social bonding connection it's so important yeah as humans and then so that's a tick and then you start talking about the importance of like the holistic way of living and listening
but listening to them and I think like tick tick tick like and then from there it's another refer out or they go off on their own or you someone you see regularly and it's I think that's a really cool system because like you obviously love what you do and it sounds like your clients will love what you do so yeah it's awesome it's really cool a good job thank you don't have that on the back I want a bunch of quick questions for you and they can be quick answers all that you can blow it
up I just want to see where you're at with a few things cool some are really hard some are a little bit easier first one have you had a defining moment I've had had a bunch awesome yeah a bunch and I don't think that it's ever really one moment that I went uh-huh yeah there's just a lot of life experience in the last sort of 16 years cool so awesome so got me to where I am now nice what's your favorite fun fact fun fact yeah that's one of the easier questions hiking's awesome that's true
that's not much of a fact though I got a fun fact for you yeah give me your spin or another article that Greg shared yesterday if you improve your sleep by 6% so what's that not much 20 minutes after now then you get a 19% decrease in cortisol okay it's outrageous there's some good numbers I like those odds yeah I like your fun fact yeah so find six ten more sleep I'm doing pretty well with my sleep good for me I'm jealous I'm working on it that's my one room for improvement like yeah true what
advice would you give the 15 year old version of yourself ask my daughter what do you wish she knew now that you that you know now what do you wish she would understand that you know now just self education yeah so self educate self educate and I'd say it to her I tell her what I know so my mom says she's not gonna listen so I'm like here's the research here's the link go find out yourself you know yeah some education 100% it's really important and belief in self because I think that that was yeah
that's taken me a long time to sort of get there and even still I have my days where we all do don't worry and that that makes me human so on that belief thing what remark what allows you to get back to like those days where you're not really believing in yourself what allows you to get back to it well again it's flipping that you know negative positive cycle so yeah it's self-talk so you know even this morning I sort of said something negative to myself and I heard myself I pulled myself up and like
hey reframe yeah turn around and lighten that you know you've got this you know any sort of reframe it and even if you don't necessarily hundred percent believe it you say it and you smile understand it does it definitely works like that yeah and I think that that's really a be mindful to to listen to self-talk yeah I think that like mindfulness is really important self-talk you start to realize that you're not your thought and you're not what you tell yourself that there's you know deeper under the like surface level thoughts there's that subconscious that
is there to like help guide you and yeah like in your head you're just trying to figure it out yeah a lot of people get stuck in that negative negative cycle of just getting stuck into well that's what I said to myself so that's what I'm gonna believe yeah but you can say something to yourself and then go you know what no that's bullshit I'm gonna give us the absolute absolutely absolutely all good like that if money wasn't an issue and you knew you couldn't fail what would you do with your life exactly what I'm
doing I love that answer good everyone should have that answer what's your next big trip or travel idea or planned business personal both either well if it's the same could be the same yeah yeah like I know I've got some pretty big pretty big plans coming on but I'm I guess you know I've got some some pretty cool hikes going away this year with my husband and some friends so we're doing the bright region for a weekend away so I'm gonna get up there and about and just sort of sauce out that area with potential
hikes to run from there like it's just something I'll have a sticky bacon see if that's there and then in September we're doing the Great Ocean Road again so I guess you know my husband and I did that a few years ago but we did in two and a half days so it's 100 bang bang bang yeah pretty insane sorry they recommend five to seven and a couple of those and it's ended in a couple days of not being able to move yeah yeah we're pretty much that but oh my god M&Ms I've never tasted
so good but yes I know I've got some pretty cool trips coming up this year and I think business and stay tuned because yeah I think it's just there's gonna be some that's very cool do you have a morning routine yes true also generally yeah hubby gets me out of bed with coffee good man I'm I'm pretty much a stickler for my veggies for brekkies yeah we've sort of got a routine we've got obviously three kids so you're getting them up in the morning that's kind of looks a little bit crazy but hey I'm pretty
sure everyone's the same as well so you know have glass of water lemon salt have you so sort of just try to get your body started that way you know I'm like everyone else I don't do it every morning yeah but I try to yeah I just started on the every morning I have a big glass of water with rock salt and lemon yeah I love it yeah I'm a Gatorade without all the crap yeah oh I couldn't drink I just feel like I just feel like I'm giving my organs a bath yeah and yeah
I feel fresh when I've had after I've had it yeah we've got four lemon trees sorry we've got but yeah so it's it's usually something along those lines and it's always sort of family and getting kids ready for school sorry it's just like everyone else's great yeah but I think in an ideal world you know love to say that I do yoga and meditate have my lemon water but it's it doesn't have to be like that's the cool that's the cool thing that's like I think the whole social media side of like morning routines and
success and lack of stuff like it's starting to show the crap and it's starting to show the crap stuff sorry not the crap inside Australia crap stuff and the things that aren't that don't work and aren't perfect like I like my goal is to get up 5 a.m. every day and yesterday I somehow snoozed my alarm without realizing and woke up at 5 40 went shit I gotta get to work in ten minutes and like that happens like that's life but I'm not gonna let that ruin the rest of my week of getting up five
and I think that's when you can like stuff up you be aware of it and then move forward yeah like it doesn't matter if you don't have the yoga or the meditation and all those things because you just make it work no it's real it's like really what's achievable for people so I think that you know if I'm gonna sit here and you know sort of make up this ideal simplistic life it's not necessarily gonna be that way that's really interesting if you could be remembered in one sentence what would it be well I guess
what I want and what I will be remember two different things but I think I want to be remembered as someone's passionate passionate about what I do and passionate about what I believe and I think that that's what people who know me really sort of resonate with anyway that it's very cool yeah what is success to you success I think it's just happiness balance family love yeah just it's a good pile of words it's a really good pile of words yeah I think that's like it what are you most proud of what I've been through
where I've come from and what I am my family good now the flip side of that question what are you most ashamed of I really think I'm ashamed of anything I think that everything lesson should be you know from bought from anything sorry yeah I've made some pretty shitty decisions in my life and not necessarily ashamed of anything done but yeah I've certainly learned from a man yeah look like those you know you were sort of reflect on where you were and why you did things and I think that's part of growth so it's a
good answer I say it's a good answer because I can tell when Keandra my girlfriend's been listening to the podcast because she'll just come out with one of the questions I asked and the other night she was what are you most ashamed of from like which episode we listen to but that's like that's exactly the answer I gave her I'm like I like yes like like you said I've made two decisions I've stuffed up I've done things that I'm not proud of but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm shaving because if I was in that same
position or in that same environment again I would make I would make a different decision I'd change it nothing that's life being able to learn from it but I think that that's where everything that I've been through everything good and bad it's got me to where I am today yes who I am it's it's made me the person I am so I don't want to be like it um I mean such a great place I don't want to be anyone else so you know I take the good and the bad together and it equals me. Do you have a hero?
My husband. That sounds a bit sucky but he really is. I think that my hero in him is the patient I think that that's a skill that I'm yet to sort of really fine-tune yeah it's I'm I know that it's you know it's definitely one of my weaknesses so I look at that in him and I just he's got it he's got it going on so I like it I just I need to keep learning from him yeah and we do we learn from each other it's nice when you have someone like that you can
learn from yeah I've got plenty of those people in my life it's cool I want a really short answer because this ended up being like a 25-minute answer and one on podcast if you could add three subjects to the school curriculum what would they be well I guess mindfulness gratitude classes yeah together yeah you know that that would sort of catch like that whole self-love self-belief self-respect just meeting how often that kind of writing just a house of a person internally yeah real like I don't know cooking classes I don't really encapsulate like what they
really should cooking a school doesn't inspire how to make scones it takes me how to you know like maybe omelette with vegetables or how to you know just sort of really integrate that whole food side of nutrition I think that should be carried through yeah and I mean guess what's the third I don't know what if I really wanted in school I think something just maybe business I remember doing accounting and thinking I think that you know not necessarily a business class per se but just something that sort of gives you a little bit more
life skills so whether it's an outdoor education classes like hey he's business he's outdoorsy sort of encapsulating both of those together that sort of division you know this just yeah sort of people that a little bit more of a an understanding of the outside world yeah they're actually gonna deal with life when it happens yeah maybe present different scenarios and you know rather than your after a class where you you're teaching or interior and things like that something maybe that yeah just get some work outdoors and sort of group bonding and you know anti-bullying all
that sort of stuff that sort of side of life where we're not really taught those skills until we in a workplace and we're like hey we're feeling this we're feeling that so that's cool yeah I'd go to that class yeah all right if you could invite three people to dinner dead or alive who would they be and why I love this question so many people so many so you will that'll definitely happen three people come on three people no rush mate pause no everyone can just press that little 15 second speed thingy ah it's really
got me stuck I think that there's a lot of people that sort of inspire me good name favorite all right look I guess Tony Robbins he's good yeah he's someone that so I guess his story he's just what he's come from to where he is and how he's built he's a crazy crazy like he'd be really awesome and really inspiring yeah I want to say Buddha because of the life he lived before he became Buddha yeah so he'd be really pretty awesome I've got two incredible people there already sorry I like how long's my dinner
party that's not a bad one Jamie Oliver very he's just yet he can just he doesn't have to talk cook because then I know that we're getting like really awesome yeah Trisha's food good the first person that's thought about the the food side of things it's very important do we need chef feels I'd be listening and talking to I wouldn't be talking until those three people but I'd be listening too much to be able to eat I'd be like just talk it's very cool last question favorite quote well John viewers on my website quoted in
saying that in every walk in nature in every walk within nature one ha I've just forgotten it oh no I have a very serious human it's on your own website I'm human sorry it happens oh anyway this is it on your website and the home page but it's yeah I mean look I've got lots of different parts and I don't necessarily memorize them because again I'm not absolutely that's just something that's you know I think that whatever drives you you know you can create your own buddy quotes yeah so good I like that I'll create
my own quote now it's like you know you're one hike away from a good mood so oh right that down that's good in every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks John you're out sorry John your you know what he's yet he was an amazing man and he was actually a nature conservationist for America so he's for a lot of people that don't know he was one of the there's your third person video party yeah well I've got that in cooking so how can people find out about holistic hikes how can people
find out about you pump yourself up go all right it's your favorite thing right no it's not my favorite thing um yeah look I'm on insta Facebook holistic hikes and www.hollistikikes.com you can email me at amanda@hollistikikes.com but yeah just get in touch any way socially you can give me a buzz I'd love to meet people face-to-face the real connection I don't want to do this shitty online program for you I want to meet you on who you are I want you to meet me I want you to feel my vibe and and then we'll go
from there awesome I'm sure we'll have to get you in the best family involved very quickly racing awesome thank you very much for coming on thank you you
