Have you ever wondered how our dietary choices influence our blood sugar and dopamine levels, or how insulin works to store fat in our bodies? There's a great deal to unravel when it comes to understanding our metabolic health. In our recent chat with Sue Cramer, a certified life and wellness coach, we delve into this complex issue, discussing the intricate connection between food addiction, emotional eating, and metabolic health. Sue offers practical advice on forming healthier habits, identifying triggers, and addressing underlying issues - indispensable for anyone seeking a healthier lifestyle.
There's more to wellness than just physical health. Our conversation takes an enlightening turn as we navigate the often overlooked aspects of inner healing, grieving healthily, and forming a connection with God for improved spiritual wellness. Sue’s incredible journey battling a mixed connective tissue disease and her triumph through dietary changes offer invaluable insights into the process of reclaiming one's health. As she aptly explains, acknowledging who we are as children of God, provides a secure foundation for our identity and purpose, impacting our overall well-being.
To wrap up our conversation, we delve into the joy of movement and the power of accepting that we are enough. Sue's empowering message about embracing our identity and finding confidence through spiritual and physical wellness is profoundly inspiring. Join us and awaken your moxie, as we journey through this rich and enlightening conversation with Sue Cramer. Listen in and transform your understanding of wellness, identity, and purpose.
Connect with Sue:
https://www.facebook.com/praiseandcoffee
https://www.facebook.com/AwakenYourMoxie
https://twitter.com/SueCramer
Thanks for listening in!
Follow the host, Mary
Social Media: @maryjohess
Have you ever wondered how our dietary choices influence our blood sugar and dopamine levels, or how insulin works to store fat in our bodies? There's a great deal to unravel when it comes to understanding our metabolic health. In our recent chat with Sue Cramer, a certified life and wellness coach, we delve into this complex issue, discussing the intricate connection between food addiction, emotional eating, and metabolic health. Sue offers practical advice on forming healthier habits, identifying triggers, and addressing underlying issues - indispensable for anyone seeking a healthier lifestyle.
There's more to wellness than just physical health. Our conversation takes an enlightening turn as we navigate the often overlooked aspects of inner healing, grieving healthily, and forming a connection with God for improved spiritual wellness. Sue’s incredible journey battling a mixed connective tissue disease and her triumph through dietary changes offer invaluable insights into the process of reclaiming one's health. As she aptly explains, acknowledging who we are as children of God, provides a secure foundation for our identity and purpose, impacting our overall well-being.
To wrap up our conversation, we delve into the joy of movement and the power of accepting that we are enough. Sue's empowering message about embracing our identity and finding confidence through spiritual and physical wellness is profoundly inspiring. Join us and awaken your moxie, as we journey through this rich and enlightening conversation with Sue Cramer. Listen in and transform your understanding of wellness, identity, and purpose.
Connect with Sue:
https://www.facebook.com/praiseandcoffee
https://www.facebook.com/AwakenYourMoxie
https://twitter.com/SueCramer
Thanks for listening in!
Follow the host, Mary
Social Media: @maryjohess
Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Back 40 podcast. I'm your host, mary Hess. Thank you for joining me today. My guest today is Sue Kramer. Sue is a life coach, a wellness coach. She is helping women over the age of 40 to awaken their moxie, to take back their spiritual, emotional and physical health, to be the best that they can be in the second half of life, and we're going to spend a lot of time today talking about those different avenues. So put your listening ears on, be patient with us. We are going to jump all over the place, but it is a really rich conversation. I'm excited for you to hear this interview. Stay tuned. Sue is up next. All right, we're so glad to have you guys with us today, and my special guest is Sue Kramer, like I said in our intro, and Sue and I hmm, sue, how far back do we go? I didn't even think about this before we hit the record button to start talking.
Speaker 2:Well, I started praising coffee back in 2007. Okay, so I think we all, we kind of connected through all that.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's what I thought. So the early blogging days pre well right around the start of when Facebook went viral and we all started using it and trying to figure it out. So Sue was one of the ones that I have actually gotten to meet, one of my online friends that I've actually gotten to meet in person and have a coffee with. But we went back into the days where Sue would do these ladies gatherings online and encourage people to do them in person, called praising coffee, and, oh my gosh, those were so good. Those were some fun times getting to do that with ladies.
Speaker 1:I completely had forgotten about that because it was just a short season that it worked out where I could do it, but it was so fun and really we brought a lot of people together from different walks of life and you were really good about drawing people in and giving us resources to kind of make that happen. And then so tell us a little bit about yourself, because I know life has changed quite a bit since then. Just tell my listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Those were fun days, and that was all kind of happened by surprise myself. I mean, my husband and I have been pastoring for a while, and then we were never paid for pastoring or for working at the church, and so when his business started to grow so much that it needed him more, we had to step away from pastoring and we handed over the church to some great leaders, and in that process I was like well, gosh.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was doing women's ministry, leading worship, writing, bible studies, all the things and I'm like, well, I get it that he had to do that, but what now for me? And so I started just blogging praising coffee, and it caught on and people started following me, and then one night I had a night out with the girls and I called her praising coffee night and I blogged about it.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden, all these people are asking me well, how do I do a?
Speaker 2:praising coffee night and what are your guidelines? And I'm like you just meet, you know so, but it's funny, I just was like really wanted to. Then I took that as encouraging women to meet outside the four walls of church, just around a coffee table or a kitchen table or whatever, and share life and so that kind of compelled me.
Speaker 2:I did an online magazine for four years I wrote a booklet on how to do a praising coffee to go Now since then, so that was a wonderful wild ride and I got to travel all over the nation, visiting all these praising coffee nights and gatherings, which was great. I met you. I met Melissa down in Florida and Renea in California and good stuff and fast forward just highlights. I ended up opening a coffee house in 2015, which was wonderful.
Speaker 2:And it turned into kind of a full restaurant and the whole thing because I don't know how to sit, still, I guess, and had never five years and then in 2020 ended up actually selling it. Wasn't again looking to do that, but a situation came up with this couple who were young and had no kids, and it was always their dream.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, well, this is perfect, because we were shuttered for a few weeks with COVID and I was like, wow, it's kind of nice to see my house again Like this is nice and not have to go pick up 10 gallons of milk every night and then so. So that was really neat. And then, just at the time too, being involved in that, I was involved in our Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 2:I was the president for a while in our town and just, I love business, I love helping people start business, so that was fun. So then, after I sold the coffee house, I ended up coaching and becoming a certified coach through the Center for Executive Coaching and in that I became very unhealthy. Actually, my health kind of really took a toll and I wasn't eating correctly, I wasn't taking good care of myself. I ended up after many years of trying to figure out what was going on you and I have talked a little bit.
Speaker 2:I had some issues with hormones, just like you, and I'm on all the fun things too and thank God for them, because they I really believe they saved my life and I was diagnosed with a mixed connective tissue disease, which is it's not necessarily lupus rheumatoid Hashimoto's, but it's kind of. All of them can flare at any time. So I was having a lot of fun. Hot mess we call that a hot mess. I would wake up and I would be so sore I can hardly move and all these things.
Speaker 2:Well, try to shorten the story up a little bit, and then I ended up taking, starting to take my health back by what I ate and what I put in my body, because we were at the point where they wanted to medicate me and that I'm not a big fan of medication at all, and so I was like, okay, let me research this and let me see what I can do. Naturally, because I knew that there were ways to help with your, your inflammation and blood sugar and all those things, and I felt like that was where a lot of this was coming from, and so I did and my doctor was like all right, I'll give you a little time to figure out what you can do before I insist that you take something.
Speaker 2:So I went basically into a very metabolically healthy diet which is kind of a low a ketogenic diet, and I say that carefully because so many people talk about a keto diet?
Speaker 2:and they buy all this junk keto food in the store and think it's a keto diet and why doesn't it work? And no, I went on a metabolically healthy way of living. So I went to Whole Foods. I got rid of all the grains and the sugars and all those things and after a year, my blood work. I went and had more blood work done and it was, I had reversed, or at least stopped, the effect of the autoimmune in my body.
Speaker 1:Wow, oh yeah, that is why.
Speaker 2:And now I'm working on a book and I'm I'm leading some groups called. The book is called Awaken your Moxie, yeah, and it is encouraging Christian women over 40 to find their purpose and get healthy and get closer to God.
Speaker 1:That is so awesome. Yeah, I have so many questions. We can have so many ways with this. Okay, so one of the things, part two we're recording this In between me dropping part one and part two of the menopause thing journey that I recorded and I don't talk about it a lot.
Speaker 1:But I mentioned that it's important that we change the way we eat and how we eat, and I just briefly talk about the fact that when I was going to a wellness coach, a doctor he used to be my OBGYN and then he switched over and started a wellness center and got certified and all those things. When I was Shannon and I were going to him, we started talking about high protein, high fats, high good fats and then hardly any sugar. We didn't go completely no sugar or no carbs, but if we had carbs, they were the better of the junk foods and stuff. I could not believe how different I felt just doing it for a couple of weeks because I thought there's no way I'm going to be. I'm not a meat eater. Oh, the thought of eating so many grams of protein feels exhausting. I would rather know. In my arm my husband was like meat, yes, well he was so excited.
Speaker 1:I was not excited about it, but we started doing it and paying attention to that. I could not believe how much the food changed. So many things. So brain fog. Yeah, my energy is not back to what it was or what I would consider acceptable levels yet, but I can tell a difference because I haven't figured out all my hormones stuff yet, all the dosages right, but I can tell a difference in the energy levels just when I eat better. It is so true, and I hate to admit it, but it is so true, that some of those carbs and sugars and stuff will give you a quick punch but, man, they suck the life out of you. On the downside.
Speaker 2:So talk a little bit about this metabolic Like?
Speaker 1:what if you were encouraging women over 40 who, hey, let's bring Perry menopause and menopause, let's talk about how that. What does that look like for you? What would you coach them? Like right away all your secrets, because I know you coach people.
Speaker 2:So well, no, I have, I'll give away everything I mean. That's why I do this is to help people. I I do very little that I actually at this point get paid for.
Speaker 2:It's like I really love to help women. Sure, and I'm 56 now, so I basically helping women understand that carbohydrates are increasing your blood sugar, right, and causing you like you said you feel good, you get that punch and you absolutely do because it spikes your blood sugar, and so you get a dopamine hit every time that we eat something that makes us feel good. And what happens, though, is because of that spike, then it drops, because if it's a carb, it's going to spike up. It's not going to be a good line.
Speaker 1:You know, we want our blood sugar to be more of a.
Speaker 2:I think I'm backwards here. I know just flowing along, you know where it's not going up and down and up and down because we're going up every time we have carbs we're it's releasing insulin because our, our body wants to get that sugar out of our blood and into the cells so we can do work.
Speaker 2:So it's kicking out insulin, which is a hormone I didn't understand, right, or hormones, great so and then it'll bring our in our blood sugar down, which makes us basically feel hungry again. So we get, if we're eating a lot of carbs, we're doing this, whereas protein we kind of gives us a little bit of a flow and fat really doesn't raise our blood sugar at all.
Speaker 2:It is so crazy, yeah. So, again, we want to make sure it's healthy fats, like you said, yeah, but so, yeah, you're feeling that brain fog because your body is fighting that all the time. And then insulin is a thank God for insulin. You know, it brings our blood sugar down and it also tells our body to store fat. So here we are eating carbs and I don't know about you but I like my carbs with fat. Yes. So, that's usually how I'm doing chips and cheese. I know.
Speaker 1:Just can't get one without the other.
Speaker 2:No, oh, right, and yeah, so that's kind of, but I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I answered that, but metabolic health means getting their metabolic health includes five factors and I'm going to sneak up my notes real quick here and the main components of that are obesity, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides, low cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, which is the one we want higher, and then insulin resistance. So it's those things that make up metabolic syndrome. So I really try to focus more on that than I do on keto, you know. I mean, I just feel like it's gotten such a bad name because it's coming as this bad diet and there's nothing. I think it's the most ancestrally appropriate way to eat, really. So yeah, yeah, Well.
Speaker 1:I. I feel like what I've had to do. This is the weirdest thing. This is what I've noticed in my life and I was telling someone. The other day I was talking to one of the girls at church I think it was, and she's in her 30s, and I was talking about how I, I you know we've got several factors going on here. First of all, I'm 52.
Speaker 1:And I think that I didn't remember I lived on a farm with my family until I was almost 20. And we ate, for the most part, everything we made. You know, we had a garden and we had animals that we slaughtered and packaged the meat, and mom would buy things from the grocery store. So it wasn't like we didn't have things, but it didn't consume the majority of our diet. And, of course, the government had different regulations and stuff on foods and how they were preserved and all the things.
Speaker 1:Back in the 70s and before they started, everything started changing. So I didn't, I didn't experience any kind of issues in my body until my late 30s, early 40s. My daughters, on the other hand, started experiencing things straight out the gate. You know you have babies who have issues with milk or have issues with these foods, or gluten issues or all of the things. And on top of that, we now are in a society where diets are not only to get rid of the fat quick and the weight on your body, but it's the cool, hip thing to do. And number three it's you know, it's the newest health craze, but yet it's a thing where you're trying to maintain a certain look and a certain feel. And so I've just gotten to the point where I'm like, okay, I want to eat in a way that keeps me healthy and alive as long as possible.
Speaker 1:Number one but I also recognize that I don't live in a world where I can grow my. I'm not at a place where I can grow my own food all the time. That's not where we live. We live on the side of a mountain and I don't get direct sunlight and you know like, maybe someday. So how do?
Speaker 1:How do we do that and change our mindset from, especially in our age? Because, look, I put on 20 pounds this in the last month. I put on 20 pounds so fast and I've all my clothes don't fit, I feel yuck, I'm trying to get back into exercise and just all the things you know. So you've got all these factors. How do we change our mindsets about why we eat like we eat and that we I don't know how strict you may have to because of your physical symptoms issues, but like I'm trying to not be so strict on myself that what happens is I crash and burn and then I just go off the rails because that's my personality it's all in or it's all nothing. So how do you encourage people to change their mindset to?
Speaker 2:change what they eat. Right, and you nailed it because it's for years. I would gain weight and lose weight and I've gone to some conferences now on low carbohydrate. Usa, all these different things and some of these really cool places where I can meet all these doctors who are doing this. And you know what's crazy? I'm sitting there at a table with doctors who know less about this than me, because they're just not taught about all this and they're taught to food pyramid.
Speaker 2:But what I wanted to say was that I had to get to the point.
Speaker 1:You know, some of these people have lost like 100 pounds and 120 pounds, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 2:Well, I lost and gained 48 times.
Speaker 2:That's my story. But what do I have to do? Different this time? And I had to finally decide. It was no longer about what I looked like or what size I was, because I would get to the size I want and then I would slowly just creep back to my old way of eating and living and I would be headlong right into it again. And so I had to decide. This is my journey of a lifetime and, yes, the physical part of it does affect me, like the reason. My health is the biggest thing, and I thought I have six grand babies now. You know I want to be here for them.
Speaker 2:I want to be able to walk around with them.
Speaker 1:I want to be able to go through the back fields and play with them and do all these things.
Speaker 2:And I had to decide this was a journey now of my life, for my health, for the rest of my life. And so when those thoughts would come of, oh, just have a little here and do a little of this, it's like, no, this is my life now and I had to. One of the biggest keys I try to help my student or my clients when I'm coaching is helping them see themselves differently, changing their identity. Because they say that changing our habits, the strength to changing our habits, is to see ourself as a different person, like I'm no longer that person who does that. I've now changed my identity of who I am as a person. So then when the temptation comes, I'm like that's not who I am anymore, right?
Speaker 2:So it's literally kind of changing the whole way. I would see myself and say, no, I actually I live healthy now and I don't eat sugar or I don't eat whatever the bread. I'm telling you bread is just as hard. It's not harder for women to quit than sugar.
Speaker 1:Oh, I would agree with that a thousand times over. I would agree with that a thousand times over. Yeah, yes, yes, and I don't know about you, but I didn't want my bread without butter or dipping it in ranch dressing.
Speaker 2:So oh. I got it. Perfect vicious cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so I, you know it's. I hope that even I try to push that, even though this is a podcast that I've created to talk about things in the second half of life, I hope there are people listening who are a little bit younger, who go. You know what. I'm gonna start tackling this now because I don't want to get to a point where I'm playing catch up and I've already done damage to my body that takes longer to correct. Because you my mom was doctor was telling me that you, as you, every decade you have to eat less or, you know, bring your caloric intake down slightly in order to just stay where you're at, because your body naturally starts converting things to fat and hanging on to protect your organs, to protect who you are and like for women, especially because we already hold fat so much easier for childbearing, and that's the way we're designed. We can't help it. That's how God made us. It becomes easier and especially then you have your hormones and all of the things that are playing against you. So I was about 10 years ago. I had this epiphany moment and I have found that if I don't maintain it I have, I find myself slipping.
Speaker 1:So about 10 years ago I was listening to a sermon and this lady was speaking at this I guess it was a ladies event, I can't even remember now and she said that she had a lot of health issues and she was really frustrated with her body and she was arguing with God about the fact that why is my body, you know?
Speaker 1:And just I hate it, I hate the way my why is my gut acting like this? And I can't figure it out and just really angry about it. And God said to her he said he said you're a house divided and a house divided can't stand united right and it will fall. And he said, and he said to her would you talk to someone else Like you talk to yourself? And when I heard her say that, I was like you know, I was like, oh God. And so everything started playing in my head how negatively I talked to myself and about myself, how often I deflect compliments and how often I push off I mean even the most simplest thing, like oh, that's a cute shirt. And going, oh my God, I like I've had it like 14 years instead of. You know what I mean. I'm not really necessarily being negative, I just am not saying thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I got it on sale. Oh, I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I only paid a dollar for it, or you know? Or your makeup looks so good today, oh girl, I had so many pieces of acne I had to cover up, are you sure? You know just weird things. And specifically with my husband, who has been a champ and compliments me all the time Like I am the sexiest, most beautiful woman in the world, even with 20 more pounds on me, and I'm like you know, I'm a good man, Right? So I have found that if I don't maintain my thought life, it affects everything else, because the atmosphere around me absorbs and takes on, and that's a spiritual thing, that's a Godly thing, that's a biblical thing. But I have to maintain my thought life, I'm telling you, and it has been the most difficult thing for me this past summer to do, because I literally am not happy with where I am, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so precious, I love it. There are so many things that you said there that I think we have to rethink how we get our comfort, cause basically, we were raised, I was raised, food was comfort, you saw it, and good happened, we went for ice cream. I mean so reframing that. What is my comfort? Finding comfort in something else besides dopamine, hits of food, focusing more on getting serotonin by walking outside, by doing all these things, not in figuring out how to get beyond the need for instant gratification.
Speaker 1:You know that instant hit, Cause food is the best that every time you know.
Speaker 2:It never lets you down. But then the fast down and then you talk, you went into something that is so incredibly important, and that is that we have to care about ourselves and understand that we are precious in God's eyes and we are valuable and God has a calling and a purpose on us, for us. That if we are sick and inflamed and mad at ourselves all the time, I mean I totally get that. You know we're gonna struggle to do the things that God's called us to do. We have to be able to see ourselves, and really I feel like I unpack this with women all day long is okay. Where did the need for that kind of comfort come from, you know? And then what is the need I'm really trying to fill, you know? And how many times does God want to be part of that that fills us? It wants us to lean on Him instead of leaning on a dopamine hit.
Speaker 2:Let's face it. You know it's very similar to addiction and I studied a lot on addiction. I've taken courses on addiction now and understanding food addiction. But it's so much more than food. Like I said with my clients, I'm talking with them. We're talking about the specifics what should I eat, what shouldn't I eat, when, how, what. But we almost always bring it back to why. Why are we doing this?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, we have to get to the root of the issues. Because if we don't, all we do is is we pile these quick little band-aids or fixes or smooth out, and what happens is is because we have the smooth out for a short season, we're like oh, oh, that feels good, okay, that works, until the next time when something gets pinged. And I have discovered that I don't eat emotionally, I eat out of boredom, like I'm not a super emotional eater. I have talked to some of my friends who are if they have a bad day or if they have a, I'm not.
Speaker 1:I don't typically lean that way, but I work from home all day and if I'm not, if I don't have a busy day, I will automatically think, oh, I need some chips, I need something to do, I need to go eat some chips. And I'll be like but I'm not hungry, but they're there and I'm bored and so I want to. You know, I won't do it later and then I eat them and I immediately go. I didn't. Why did I do that? Why did I, you know, why did I feel like I had to just overthink it and push past everything? I know what is down in there that makes me want to do it.
Speaker 2:And how much of it is biological and how much of it is is is emotional.
Speaker 1:So many factors? Yeah, there's, and that's like unpacking, figuring.
Speaker 2:I think that's why God makes our kids be gone. Why we're empty nesters now is because we've got plenty of time to figure this out and we don't need to be cleaning up after them right now. We have to figure this out.
Speaker 1:The ears have stuck to figure out here.
Speaker 2:It's exhausting, it's you know that is so faithful and he really, when he's and he says come to me if you're weary and heavy burdened, I'm going to give you a rest, you know, he shows us, he gives us the keys, and it is simple, but it's not easy, no, no, but it's walking hand in hand with him, going okay, what can I? And when we fail and we fall, just learn it's not, don't get stuck there and don't continue down that ditch. Go, okay, what did I? Just? Okay, I just blew it. I just did some, you know, I just I don't know. Since we're talking food, I just ate all the things. Yep, why did I do that.
Speaker 2:What can I learn from this?
Speaker 1:What was I lean? What was it? Was it boredom? Okay, so now when.
Speaker 2:I'm bored. What's our new plan for boredom Right? No yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I can't tell you how many times now I have gone in to my junk drawer, dumped it on the counter and reorganized it because I'm like I'm bored, I better do something, you know, and there's always something to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I will do that kind of thing sometime, just to make myself busy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it, like you said, it's forming new habits. It's. I told Shayna the other day we were talking about all of this and when I was recording the menopause podcast and on part two, the very first thing I start talking about are all the symptoms, the symptom list they give. It is the longest list I've ever seen in my life and when I read them I was like no wonder people are so confused. Right, we have, I was telling Shayna, we have, as a woman, I know men do too, but I feel like because we have some other traits that and things that men don't necessarily carry prevalent.
Speaker 2:More working parts right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that it feels exhausting to try to have to check off the list. When I was doing more counseling and pastoral counseling and stuff, I would have girls come to me and we would be sitting down talking and they'd be like and I just my life is horrible. And the first thing I would say is are you PMS-ing? Are you on your cycle? Did what happened to make you feel this way? Was it, Was it? And so I start going through emotional, spiritual and physical, and you have to do that In this phase of life.
Speaker 1:I feel like I'm tripling that up somehow, Like I have. So why am I eating out of boredom? Okay, is that a spiritual thing? Is that a bad habit I've created? Is that all of them mixed together? How do I address it? What would you say when you're coaching people and talking to women? How do you? Do you have like a I don't know, like a check off list of something like how do you can address these quickly or figure out or look at why you're feeling this way or reacting this way, or those sorts of things?
Speaker 2:You know what? Every situation is different. I mean, I have notes and I've studied and all those things, but I just I try to listen well, so I can hear what is it, what are they really saying here? Because sometimes they're like, oh, I just I do this and I do this and I just tell me more, you know, tell me more. And then we start talking and find out that the kid got in trouble at school and they're feeling like a horrible mother, you know. And so it's kind of it's tracing back to that. I had one client who said to me I just I was stressed out and I started eating pudding and I don't even like pudding and I don't know why pudding and I?
Speaker 2:said well, did you have pudding as a chocolate? Was that? She goes, no, and I'm like well, I'm not sure right now, and she emailed me two days later she goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I talked to my mom, she gave us pudding whenever we were upset.
Speaker 1:Oh, and she didn't even remember and it was just a natural comfort response. Interesting. So many factors play into all of this and it what I love about what you're doing is it very much is paired with what's really close to my heart, which is we call it inner healing or healing of the heart. Like a lot of what I do with people, and especially with us, pastoring and just in day to day life is, hey, let me walk alongside you here for a season and let's talk about why you act the way you act or what causes you to react the way you do, and we work on those internal issues. What I love is is you're combining it with also the physical aspect of okay, also, the food you put in your body is not helping your body and it's also affecting your mood because of the dopamine and the serotonin and the ups and the downs and the highs and the lows and all of that I love. It's really about the whole body, right, it's about the whole person body soul and spirit.
Speaker 2:It is all of who we are, and that is it's just. It's like. I say it's not like you're a, you're not a problem, you're a puzzle. Let's figure this out, because God did he put all these things in you? Okay, let's try to figure some of it out, and some of it we will not figure out on this earth. I'm convinced that there's. You know, I have trauma in my past and my childhood, and just yesterday, something came up and I was like oh my goodness, I learned something about myself as a child, and I'm like that's why I respond this way to that situation, I mean, and it's we just so? The thing is, though, what is so beautiful about what we can do is because we're Christians, we can take that to the Father and go learn. I need your healing in that area, and a lot of times, what I'm learning is that we need to grieve so many of these things that and I'm sure you're doing that with inner healing your things are coming up.
Speaker 2:okay, let's unpack it and let's grieve the fact that you know, okay, your mom was a narcissist. You weren't loved the way you deserve to be loved as a child. You know, and I talked to her Narcissism comes up a lot. It's marriages, families, all of those things, relationships at work and okay. So how should you have been treated, how did you deserve to be treated? And you know what. Bring that to the Father and ask for Him to not only help you hurt from it and then heal you know to heal through that but we also can't ignore the fact that it hurts. We need to acknowledge that pain and say, yeah, it's real, it hurts and maybe we have a time where we sit in that, but then I'm very, you know actionable about okay let's move forward.
Speaker 1:Let's make a whole ocean.
Speaker 2:then how do we, what do we do to let God heal that and redeem that? From what the enemy wanted to do with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had. I had a lady on. Her name was Keras. She was on a few episodes back and we talked about not knowing how to lament and mourn well, as believers, because we just wanna do the celebrate part.
Speaker 2:We just got it. We got it all the time and all the time. God is good.
Speaker 1:Amen, but we don't, I know, but we don't know how to, like you said, I say to yeah, sit with it. It's okay to sit in this tension of not being healed yet, but also, you're not in this moment back here where you were hurt or wounded in any kind of way.
Speaker 2:Right, you're saying, but you've not ever felt it.
Speaker 1:You've never acknowledged it and felt it, and so we're gonna sit right here with this in this tension and process through it so that you can move on from it. You step on. No, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think that we don't know how to do that. Well, in the body, I think we're learning. I think that there has been progress, but even for all of the healing, everybody's into their feels and everybody's triggered and everybody's got. It's the trendy thing to talk about right now. It's the hot topic, but the real hard work of it is you don't stay there. That's not the purpose of it. It's just to acknowledge it, talk about it. It is to move on from it, and we don't know how to. I don't know how to sit with people well, in those moments and do it, but I hope we get better at it. You know, yeah, I think we are.
Speaker 2:I know for the way I help women through it is I talk a lot about attachment and the things I learned by adopting a child from China who had been two years in an orphanage and had attachment disorder and through that process of bringing her home, getting her attached to us, which included a year of really hardly leaving the home, not letting anyone else hold her, bringing her back to bottle feeding, because I needed her to need me, I needed her to depend on me.
Speaker 2:I had to create an attachment with her that she had never experienced, ever before she could attach to others. And then, as I'm doing all this, god says this is what's wrong in my body right now is because we have basically attachment disorder. So how does a child react out of that? They act out, they reject people, they try to control every situation, and it's like this is what's happening with my children is they are because they didn't take that time to lean in. Let themself trust me, pause, be still and know that I'm God. Create that attachment. We're like orphans, even though we have a family, like if I had just brought Lauren home and didn't do any of that, we could have functioned, but it would have been very dysfunctional. I mean, it would never have gotten the love that she needed, she would have never healed in the ways that her little brain even needed to heal, to get that nurturing and all those things, and I don't believe she'd be the young woman of God she is now.
Speaker 1:We talk about this quite a bit. There's, especially with a mom, the whole attachment. That's a psychological thing we talked about it when I was in school, I've become an accountant.
Speaker 1:But applying it in the body as well, I think about the classic story of the loving father, the prodigal and the older son. I mean living. We have so long lived like orphans in the house and we didn't have to. We had everything at our disposal, we had God right there to be in relationship with, but we didn't attach properly. We didn't. And so when someone else comes along and is successful in all of those ways, it pings us and we act like orphans. We try to gather in stuff to keep it all ours. We think that someone's getting our piece of the pie, we think that we have to scramble to keep our place, all of those things.
Speaker 1:But if we were a son and a daughter and not the orphan, then we obviously are secure in our identity and who we are, because we're the child of God, we're a king's kid and so we're royalty. We don't have to worry about if things are at our disposal or if we have a place. It's hard because identity. I do think identity goes down to the base issue of pretty much everything we experience in life and, yeah, if we could just get that one thing really right, I think a lot of things would naturally fall in place. I'd want to take care of myself better. I'd want to be my best. I would. I mean, that's just my thoughts, it's not, doctor.
Speaker 2:Great. Well, I think it's cool. We I mean, don't you think that, as If we make it too easy to sound like, well, if you join this church or this Bible study or you do this, this will bring this and this where it's? Are we really talking relationship?
Speaker 1:No, it's consumer driven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I recently went to a visited a church and I just felt like it was. There was a lot of scripture and it was all good, but it was all like it was just kind of being thrown and there wasn't this sense of knowing him as father or knowing him in a relationship. It was. It was religion, right, and I'm like man. I think that's one of the biggest themes to a relationship with.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Well, you can't. You can't do both. Religion is the opposite of relationship, so you can't do both. You have to choose one or the other and you're either going to go by the rules and do all the things, or you're going to live in relationship, which means the rules don't feel nearly astringent, but the responsibility is heavier and greater, because now you are. Now you are not worried about concerned about keeping the connection, over the need of being right or getting all of the things right, or all of the things you know being good, yeah, being good.
Speaker 1:And it's like you said with your daughter, lauren, when you, when God was speaking to you. That's a lot of how he did with me as well. When Zoe was little. You know, we grew up really in a very works oriented. You know religious experience and people were great and I thank God for the foundation I have because I've learned so much from it. But at the time it was all about the outward and it was all about all the things you did.
Speaker 1:And when Zoe was born, I can remember God showing me and kind of talking to me about the fact that he's like Mary, when, when Zoe falls down and doesn't walk all the way across the room, like you think she should, because she's walking now and she stumbles and she falls. Do you? Do you pick her up and say you know what? You're going to have to sit over here right now until you figure this walking thing out. You don't get to be my kid, you don't get to, you don't get to do all things. Do you make her crawl back up inside of you and rebirth her all over again to let's try this again?
Speaker 1:Let's you know there was so many things that he would show me and I'd be like, well, no, I would just say, hey, babe, get up, don't stay down there, get up and keep moving. He's like right, why are you so rigid over here when that's not how I, that's not how I operate? So I learned a lot with that kind of thing and I feel like that. You know, that identity thing is a huge, huge factor in in in a lot, and I mean that's still stuff that you know. From time to time I have to remind myself hey, hey, come on now. That's not who you are, you know, that's that's where I have people in my life who get to say that to me, because I've given them permission, you know, and they can say those sorts of things. Girl, we have been all over the board today, amen.
Speaker 2:I feel like we need to take up an offering. I don't know how you're going to label this, but I'm going to give this anymore.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Sue. Thanks so much. Now I'm like a little of everything with Sue Kramer. Thank you, Episode 22. Episode 22. I love it.
Speaker 2:I kind of knew it would go this way. I had a feeling to I had a feeling to.
Speaker 1:This is what. This is what happens. Well, let's try to circle back for a moment. So what would, what advice would you give someone in their in their forties, hitting their fifties, who is potentially going through all the changes? Well, who potentially are going through all of the changes who am I kidding, Like, if they're just kind of getting started checking things out what would you suggest are some first steps? What would you suggest that they do?
Speaker 2:Well, goodness, I mean spiritually, emotionally, physically, I would say. I mean, if we're going to, I'm going to go physically. Yeah, let's go physically. Yeah, I'm telling you, as hard as this is, I see the best results from people who cut as much processed food and sugars out of their life as possible. Yeah, you, just it's not helping you, it's really not. And people think, well, it's, it's essential.
Speaker 2:I have to have that, technically, carbohydrates are not an essential part of food at all. There are only three macronutrients protein, fat and carbohydrates. And carbohydrates. If we never had another one not that you're going to go zero, but if you didn't, you would be fine your liver, your liver, would produce every bit of sugar you actually need. So you technically don't need them and so I would cut out, especially the processed stuff.
Speaker 2:Second thing I always say don't drink pop, don't drink sugar pop. Please, please, please. That's the one thing. If you stopped in your life, don't drink your sugar. Yeah, and fruit smoothies are causing damage to your body. I know it sounds wonderful, I know everybody's, I've got some information on this too, but fruit smoothies are technically very dangerous because we're taking in, we're we're getting rid of all the fiber and they're very high sugar, so we're taking away any part of it that would be good for us by blending it, and then we're drinking it down and so we're getting a fast sugar spike that is causing damage to our liver. They're seeing so much fatty liver disease now, not due to alcoholism, but due to sugar intake, and fruit smoothies are one of the highest. It's almost as bad and I've heard doctors say it's worse than having alcohol.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:No, do do research, don't take that. Oh no, no, no, no, yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, physically, those are the first things I would say. And then, boy, you know, find out who you are in him, find out who you are as his daughter. You know, surround yourself with people that make you better.
Speaker 1:Yes, definitely, absolutely. Then turn around and help make some other people better. Pass it on, give it away. Pass it on and give it away.
Speaker 2:That's the best way to get oxytocin is to give.
Speaker 1:Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1:I agree with that 100 percent. I agree with that 100 percent. Have you found that any of your research? Or when you're talking to women? I know that I've read some things and I feel like this is the path to go. And this is kind of what I've been doing is converting over to more strength training as I age, to build muscle, to help with my bones, and not being as driven to do that 45 minute cardio session. But I feel like if I'm building muscle, that that should also help burn fat if I do want to lose weight. But I haven't. That's what my my doctor suggested and I'm trying that because I, first of all, I don't have the energy to do a cardio workout anymore.
Speaker 2:I don't know why. Well, and you're right, and the research is proving exactly what you're saying is true, that and we are going to it is much more beneficial to us to do, and I would say, resistance training, because to me weight training is scary sounding.
Speaker 1:I can't, I don't want to wait for it. I'm talking about them, little light, dumb bells.
Speaker 2:you know the light hand You're. You're doing something that's causing resistance, and some of that you can get through yoga and Pilates, you know, but it is definitely a refocusing of of physical activity. I mean, the research is showing walking is generally way better than running.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. And I used to run and I loved running but it was one of those people. Oh my God, if you ever see me running you ever see me running, it's because somebody's chasing me. Just, you better run, because I am not doing it.
Speaker 2:You know what it was. Here's the thing, here's the other thing. Is, like I just said, connection. It was because I was connected with a group of girls who did yeah, sure, it became fun and I actually enjoyed it and I don't do it anymore, but I have a new hit this year though.
Speaker 2:So that's fun, right, right, yeah. But yeah, I think it's. It's important that we move more period. What does that look like? I mean, if that means you can throw on music and dance around your house and do whatever great go for a walk out in the field. Getting outside is very important for us and, living in Michigan, that's a challenge a lot of times of the year. Oh yeah, oh, so yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, definitely switch away from the aerobic and into the resistance training and then for, for your heart and think, go for a walk, but resistance training is very, very good for you. And they're showing it doesn't even have to be a lot, right, that's what they told me to it you could do like it, like for me.
Speaker 1:I, when I say weight strength training, I'm not talking like big, dumb barbells and things. I've got five pound weights and eight pound weights and three weight and doing things that are building high reps, low weights, high reps, low weights, so you know your triceps and your hammer curls and and all of things to just strength train, to help your bones and your mobility so that you can still get up and down off the floor and it not be this huge. You know chore, so you know those kinds of things. Now I will say that I found this. I don't know if you've heard of this guy, so I found this dude who I? I work from home, so it's hard for me unless I do it super early in the morning. I am not a morning person, I try to be. I think it looks so cool when people are like oh, I was up at five am and I worked out and I read my Bible and spent an hour with Jesus, and I'm like I don't even know if Jesus is awake at five.
Speaker 2:He's up yet.
Speaker 1:I have a problem with this. I am never going to be early. Will I seek you like David? I guess I'm just going to be like King David, because I can't do it.
Speaker 2:And I love it. I'm a morning person, but I'm jealous of your evenings. Like I'm nine o'clock, I'm a pumpkin.
Speaker 1:I'm oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm jealous of that.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Well, the problem is is I'm not really an evening person. I discovered I'm, and there's no name for it. I'm a good middle of the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like a 10 am to about 3 pm and let me tell you I can knock everything out in the world. I love that, but anyways. But I found this guy and this how do you say his name? Keoni Tamayo. He has YouTube videos out and they are so fun. He'll have different videos out where you can walk with him and his mom to music, oh, and it's like get 3,000 steps in in 20 minutes or get 10,000. But it's fun and he moves and kind of half dances and stuff. And I'm telling you he is so joyful about it that I just want to do it, just because he makes me smile. And so when I'm standing here working and I'm like I'm not getting a movement, movement enough, I can pop on one of those videos and just stand there and in my office and go oh, ok, I can, I can go, I can move. So that you know, stuff like that I've been trying to do. But it's really weird changing the mindset that it's not about the cardio and it's not about cardio.
Speaker 2:It's not about low fat you know, all these things that we were trained to learn and to believe, and boy, it's blown out of the water now, oh man it has.
Speaker 1:It's crazy. Ok, one last question for you. I ask it of everybody that's on my podcast. Oh, if you could go back to your 20 year old self with all the wisdom, knowledge and experience you have right now, what would you say to her?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, I mean, I almost made me cry.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of people burst into tears when they do this. It's OK, go ahead, it's.
Speaker 2:OK, you know what?
Speaker 2:It would be completely related to identity, and it would be. You are enough and you have every right to show up and take space and but in a way, of course, that loves others but don't be afraid, like, stop being afraid to be yourself. And of course, at that time I had no idea who I was, sure, but I think it would just be To really encourage myself to be more secure and to how do I say that? Does that make sense? I mean, I think I was. I just think back, I was just so insecure, I didn't know who I was. I was a brand new mom and wife and all those things, and I knew my identity shouldn't be wrapped up in any one of those things, but I still, just I had so much fear and insecurity that that would be the thing is. It's OK, it's.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:You're going to be OK, you know, and just the confidence now that I have, not because I've achieved some great thing, but just the fact that, god, you make me exactly the way I am and that's OK you know, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think if we, that's so good, because I think if we could get that earlier in life, it does make things so much easier. I tell my girls all the time you know, I have a 27 year old and an almost 17 year old now and I'm always telling my 16 year old Zoe if, if you would just take advantage of the experience and knowledge we have right now about how to know who you are and to be confident and healthy and to do things from a place of love, and you know all of these things, you're not going to have the baggage I had in my forties when I was experiencing this for the first time. You know my late thirties, early forties and going what, that's not who I am. That's just a glitch that needs to be fixed. You know what? What I always thought that was who I was, but just that identity thing. Then take advantage of it, because it just saves so much heartache and frustration and loss of relationship and all the things.
Speaker 2:Could I do it, though, without experiencing all the things and a lot of the pain?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I don't know I don't know, maybe a little bit.
Speaker 2:Maybe a little yeah and just it's going to be OK would be a great message. Yeah, it's going to be OK. You know you're going to hit some things and it's going to hurt and God's going to heal and it's going to be OK.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. It's so good so I hug Virtual hug. And hug to everybody out there.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to our Our our interesting conversation journey today.
Speaker 1:It's been fun it was wonderful.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. And when I get my down the ball, I will have you on my girl.
Speaker 1:I would love that. That would be so fun.
Speaker 2:I'm going to wait in your moxie because, girl, you got moxie Well yes, I do, yes, I do.
Speaker 1:Do yes, I do. Thank you. Thank you, sue, thank you. Well, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of the Back 40 podcast. I'll have all of Sue's contact information and stuff all the good stuff down in the show notes, so be sure to check that out, sue. Thank you again for being with me today. It's been an absolute honor and so much fun and so informative. We will see you guys on another episode, so come back and visit us in a couple of weeks, see you.