Season 8 Episode 4: Eat Good, Feel Good with Health Coach Sue McCarroll

What we should eat and why? How do how we move and what we eat work together to give us the strength, clarity and confidence to live full, joyful lives? In this episode of Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear, nationally certified Pilates teacher and holistic health coach Sue McCarroll joins master certified life coach Melissa Wiggins to talk about wellness. Learn how Sue plans the meals for the Waterfalls and Wonder retreats, how Pilates strengthens your entire body and why she says you can change your life one choice at a time. Grab a cuppa and listen in.

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#wellness #eatgoodfeelgood
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Melissa Wiggins  Hello lassies Welcome to coaching and a cup of tea with Mummabear. And also Sue McCarroll today, one of my best friends in the entire world. You are very lucky to get to hear from this Lassie because she has sunshine in a cup. And even though you can't see her, she's just smiling massive, which is who she is. I am so excited to have her on my podcast for season eight. Season II is all about retreats, self care, how do we take care of our bodies and our mind and Sue Macau as the Lassie to explain to us how we do that. But before we get into that, Sue, why don't you tell us the five things that we need to know about Sue McCarroll?

Sue McCarroll  Okay, I feel like this is right in line with our friendship, because I'm so good at promoting other people and not so great about promoting myself. So I feel like it's just perfect that yeah, for those of you that don't know about Melissa, and my friendship, we like kind of challenge each other. And well, actually, she challenges me, I think I challenge you to in the health front, but we could talk about that later. But she always seems to like to throw me into these situations like 'Oh, go speak on this stage. Or don't worry, like there's a top 10 motivational speaker there. No worries, don't worry.' So it feels just about right to start this podcast off. So five things that they should know about me.

Find the FULL Transcript Here: Season 8 Episode 4: Eat Good, Feel Good with Health Coach Sue McCarroll

Transcript

Melissa Wiggins  00:00

Hello lassies Welcome to coaching and a cup of tea with Mummabear. And also Sue McCarroll today, one of my best friends in the entire world. You are very lucky to get to hear from this Lassie because she has sunshine in a cup. And even though you can't see her, she's just smiling massive, which is who she is. I am so excited to have her on my podcast for season eight. Season II is all about retreats, self care, how do we take care of our bodies and our mind and Sue Macau as the Lassie to explain to us how we do that. But before we get into that, Sue, why don't you tell us the five things that we need to know about Sue McCarroll?

Sue McCarroll  00:43

Okay, I feel like this is right in line with our friendship, because I'm so good at promoting other people and not so great about promoting myself. So I feel like it's just perfect that yeah, for those of you that don't know about Melissa, and my friendship, we like kind of challenge each other. And well, actually, she challenges me, I think I challenge you to in the health front, but we could talk about that later. But she always seems to like to throw me into these situations like Oh, go speak on this stage. Or don't worry, like there's a top 10 motivational speaker there. No worries, don't worry. So it feels just about right to start this podcast off. So five things that they should know about me. Let's see. I am a nationally certified Pilates teacher. I teach classical style of Pilates. And my ultimate goal always is for everyone to know that anyone can do pilates and Pilates is for everyone. And I'm a holistic health coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And I would say I'll leave you with one quote that tells you all about how I coach: You can change your life. One choice at a time.

Melissa Wiggins  01:58

So good. I love that one. So good.

Sue McCarroll  02:00

And I might put that on the shirt tonight. I'm trying to do some swag. Number three, Melissa and I met when Cannon was in treatment. And we both had at the time was yes, you had twins already. So I have twins in the reverse order. So I have twins and a younger son and she has Cannon and then twins, but we both have three boys and then she went on to adopt Charlie and she has her stepdaughter Olivia but we connected over three boys Starbucks, Scotland, because my husband was raised in a Scottish immigrant household. And honey grown noodles. If you live in the New Jersey, Pennsylvania area, you'll know what I'm talking about. That was three. Oh my goodness. Number four. This is hard. I have a podcast

Melissa Wiggins  02:49

An amazing podcast for all of you people who are into health and body and mindset, all of the things so we'll link up your podcast. Okay.

Sue McCarroll  03:01

It's called the Well2You podcast. And now I have one more. I mean, I feel like I did a lot of things already. Let's see. I don't know. Is there something I'm forgetting? I'm the amazing health coach on the retreats called Waterfalls and Wonders run by Melissa Wiggins

Melissa Wiggins  03:15

And that is why Sue is here today. This season we're talking a lot about how do we take time for ourselves? How do we give ourselves permission to go on retreat? How do we move away from those selfish feelings we get right of like, 'Oh, I'm taking time away from my responsibilities or family.' And that season already we heard from someone who was on the retreat, but I thought it would be really beautiful to have Sue on because Sue and I run the retreat together we are the team that makes all of the magic at Waterfalls and Wonder happen. And for us by the way, just sidenote, it's like a dream come true. Who did some work with your best friends were like wait, well, we get paid to do this, we would do it for free. That's where we get to spend like a week together and our little short of a week but we get to spend some time together at the magical lake house in South Carolina. And we both have kind of different skills and so it's just beautiful the way it kind of comes together like a puzzle. Sue does Pilates and has the moving their body everyday which we'll talk a little bit about and she also cooks these ridiculously delicious meals that are made with all the most wholesome ingredients. Then she teaches us about what we're eating and why we need to eat it and I you know basically make people cry for three days and then occasionally challenge them to like whitewater raft or is that plane or you know, so it worked out great for everybody. I feel like I'll

Sue McCarroll  04:51

just pop in and say the challenges are so fun. And no one listening to this will understand that but she's absolutely right. And the very beginning of the show, I said that she challenges me and she even challenges me when I'm on the retreat. And at our last retreat, we did ziplining. And I said, Oh, this is not going to be bad. I took my son ziplining for his birthday, I'm like, this is sign, and we pull up. And then I see like, how high this and I'm like, this is not, this is not what I did before. So I kind of coached I think I kind of coached myself into this, I really struggle with that moment. Like, I'm good on the platform. I'm good on the zipline, but the moment where you have to sit down, and they're gonna, like, push it off. So every time that happened, I would say, This is so fun. And I think after a while, I started to believe it.

Melissa Wiggins  05:40

She did keep saying over and over. And I was like, Hey, you're a speculator activating system is really believing that this fun, and it's looking for the fun, right? It's the retreat as part of the reason why we do challenges as to create evidence, right. And I actually talked about you, Sue, and the last podcast episode because I said, one of the things you said was, I feel less anxious about doing this thing today, because which was plunging into ice cold water at the bottom of a waterfall for those lessening, but I feel anxious about that. Because last retreat, Melissa, you made as whitewater raft on level four rapids, on like the coldest day in South Carolina and history. So we're joking about it and having fun with it, because we're base rains, but also really everybody creates evidence while they're on it. And we do it very purposefully. And, and Sue and I grow wet the last season, I think that's what makes it so beautiful. Sue and I are not seeing he last year you were in charge, we're going to show you how to do it, we come together, it's almost like a little mastermind retreat, and we pour into each other and we use different skills. And Sue and I are just kind of not leaving alone. But sort of like Come this way. Try this. It's really beautiful. And I really wanted you to be a big part of the retreat, because I feel like you have been such a big influence in my life for so many reasons, but very, very much in the health place. And so full disclosure, and Sue and I talk about this on retreat when Sue met me, and this just shows you how much she really loved me. I wasn't a Diet Coke slash like drive thru McDonald's girl. And if you knew me today, you would be like, nah, nah, what less I like. But the truth is, when we met, I was in a very hard place with my son, Ken, and who was fighting stage for cancer, for those of you that are listening and are new, and Sue was, you know, supporting me through that treatment of Pez. But during that time, I eat and drank horribly, because I was in a survival mode. And in a place where mentally food was just No, and health was just not something I was thinking about. And so sue did what I think is really beautiful, and a health coach, which she didn't judge, she just was an example to me, right? She was an example and the choices that she made. And I feel like that is the same for me, I have a very, very good coach, someone who is not saying and you say this a lot, even on retreat, guys, this might not be for you. This is just what I do. Right? Like, this doesn't need to be for you. This is just what I do. And so why don't you tell us a little bit sooner about how do you come up with the meal ideas? What kind of things do you teach everybody at dinner time, because it's all very organic, even though I know it's all super intentional. And I know there's a lot of prep that goes into it, but you just make it look like you're just chillin at home making us like ridiculously divided meals. So tell us more about it.

Sue McCarroll  09:01

So actually, surprisingly, most of the menu items are things I make regularly at home for my family. And that is intentional, like I intentionally went into the retreat, and I wasn't going to cook well. First of all, I'm not like a fancy chef, I'm more of someone who loves to cook good healthy food, right and had have for a long time. So just as a little background for me, I in my 20s had really severe I'm a highly sensitive person that had really severe migraines to the point where at one point in my 20s, I had like five days a week I would be in pain. And I had to basically through the support of other people like I went to a biological therapist, and they helped me figure out that I was sensitive to Cowdrey and like a lot of different things. But so what I teach is really about nine journey through life and how to keep my highly sensitive body happy, right, but really, the way you keep a highly sensitive Nobody happy is by reducing your toxin load eating clean, healthy food, right. So it's all the same stuff. And intentionally, I wanted to bring things that people could feel like they could easily make at home, right. And I'm gonna share this tip now because I feel like I'll forget in a second. But I have a really crazy busy life, I have three boys one goes to school in another city, it's pretty wild. And so sometimes even me, as a health coach, we'll get into a rut where we're just kind of like pulling healthy food out of the freezer and heating it up. And I get frustrated. And I'm like, Okay, I need to figure out how I'm gonna get back onto a cooking schedule. And what I do to do that is I choose the simplest, easiest meal. So I might choose some like quinoa takes about five minutes to make quinoa is sort of a, it's a grain, but it's not a grain. It's gluten free, it has protein in it, it's a great, great ancient grain. And I cook some of that, which takes like five to 10 minutes, I roasted veggies in my oven, which you know, once you put them in, it's really a total of five minutes of effort. And then I'll throw in some salmon or something like that. And so that reminds me a weight. making dinner can be easy, right? And that's sort of like the idea at the retreat, to show people that you can do these things at home, because it's one thing to come to retreat. And I think that there's a place for this kind of retreat to it's just not what we do. You know, to come and have all these fancy meals and you're there and you're eating it and you feel amazing. But you get home and you feel like there's no way that you could accomplish them in your life. You know?

Melissa Wiggins  11:42

Yeah, I love that. And I think you do an amazing job and what one of my favorite things. So we have like these little group takes that we create during retreat, and we sue and I just love them and we take outside of them how proud we are of everybody. But everybody will say in pictures of making something that Sue did and it's the just the most cutest thing ever. They'll be like so are you so proud of me, I made a salad bar Sue, I'm I printed all the main use Sue, I'm like And Sue and I just love it because again, like everything feels very organic. But what happens is, you know, someone will be in the kitchen helping to make something and then someone will be doing the dishes and someone will be setting the table. And it's like we become this little family just cooking these meals for a couple days. And then you explain what you did. And everyone just mystified that there's like three ingredients or you know, it's beautiful.

Sue McCarroll  12:39

Yeah, actually, I just got a text the other day from a Mara, who was on the last retreat, and the salmon that I made was like the only salmon she's ever liked. So she was going to make that. And then actually, ironically, so a year ago was the first retreat that we did together. And in my Facebook memories popped up live NYers. And she was making mason jar salads and drinking like choosing a smoothie with her boyfriend that I had shared way back when so it's so true. And it's kind of cool for us. Because now twice a year, all these awesome memories come up for us.

Melissa Wiggins  13:14

No, it's amazing. We love it. And we feel so lucky to get to do it. And I agree, I think you know, there are places and times to have lots of fancy healthy meals. But our thing is always we want people to take a little slice of the retreat home with them. Right? Whether that is a two week Ray, whether that is the evidence that they can do hard things, whatever it is, we want them to take a little piece of home. And I mean, that's why I think a lot of people come back. We could just do retreats all year long. But that's right. Like, what are you? What would you say to someone who, you know, wants to sort of get healthy in terms of what they eat? Would you just tell them to try like simple things first, no overcomplicated. How do you start a health coaching client? So yeah,

Sue McCarroll  14:07

I definitely keep it simple. But I actually and this may not be for everybody. But this works really well for my mind and has worked really well for my clients. We start one meal at a time. So we look at breakfast first. And then for like two weeks, they just work on making their breakfast as healthy as possible. And then when breakfast feels like solidified and it feels easy, and they look forward to it. Then we move on to lunch. And then we do the same thing with lunch and then we move on to dinner. And what really happens towards the end once you're done breakfast and you're starting to nail down lunch, you almost automatically start to make changes in dinner because there is this phenomenon like if you wake up and you get a workout in and you eat a healthy breakfast and then you eat a healthy lunch. You naturally don't want to ruin it with dinner. Right? So it's like if you've already made it through three quarters For the day doing a great job taking care of yourself. It's like, natural encouragement to finish off the day strong.

Melissa Wiggins  15:08

Yeah, I love that. And I, I can imagine, and I think that's why people fail a lot of the time and feel is probably not the best word to use. But like for the beam is taking on too much of like all of these changes, and they're not sustainable.

Sue McCarroll  15:26

Yeah. And I and you know, I'll say I give lots of recipes, but I do not do written meal plans, I do not do calorie counting, I do not do let's look at the scale and see what you have lost. That's not how I coach. And I think that does work for some, but I don't really personally feel like it's very sustainable for a happy life. In that situation, when you have a written meal plan. And it's like, you make one mistake off of it, then you feel like you ruined it, and you just throw the rest of the day away. And really, it's just not like we're creating a lifestyle of habits or like a life of habits that are going to help us feel our best self. It's not really and I know, I'm not always the most popular opinion on this. But it's not about how you look. I mean, it is about how you look, but it's not about are you a size six? Or are you a size 10? It's not about the number on the scale. It's about like, Is your hair shiny? Or your nails growing really strong? Does your skin glow? Do you feel strong? Do you feel confident? Those are the things that it's about.

Melissa Wiggins  16:30

And I think like to add to that, like the clarity and the energy that comes from eating good. You there's no there's no energy drink or coffee, they can give you the same,

Sue McCarroll  16:41

they're just as Correct. Correct. And I will say if you are getting if you're one of those people that gets, you know, the afternoon slump, like that, you know, three to five, two to five time where you feel brain fog and you feel tired. Most likely, that's a sign that you need to look at what you're putting in your body. How much I mean, sleep is always so important, but how much sleep you're getting, how much you're what you're putting in your body. And there's a good thought I just spent the whole weekend with a teacher trainer here at my studio, she was teaching us her method for working with clients who with breast cancer, breast cancers, thrivers, and survivors. And she taught a fundraiser class on moving your lymph system, right. And so your lymph system is basically so you have your heart and your heart pumps the blood, and then you sort of have this other system called the limb. And the limp doesn't have something that pumps it. And the way that gets moved is by moving your body, right. So when you are stagnant and you don't move, the toxins that are in the link length are not able to be flushed out of your body and not be able to be moved. So I think you know, the food we eat and how we move how through our life is what really plays into that sort of brain fog and tiredness.

Melissa Wiggins  17:59

Yeah, I love that. So let's talk about moving our body. And I know that Pilates is your movement of choice. Why don't you tell us why what you do Pilates wise at the retreat and why you believe everybody should do Pilates.

Sue McCarroll  18:18

Okay, well. So I would like to start by saying that Joseph Pilates was created by a man. So when people say it's just for women that really like gets under my skin and irks me because it dude, the creator was the man. And he was like a man's man. He was a boxer. He was German, he would walk down the streets of New York City in his little briefs, like because Germans believe that you should get cold air on your skin. I don't know if you know about that. I mean, we do. We did our we did our cold funds. But basically what Pilates does, and I'll tell you what it did for me. And that'll sort of give you a little understanding. But Pilates, every single exercise is designed to strengthen and stretch you at the same time. Right? So when people come to Pilates, and they're say, can we just stretch today? That's like there's a million memes amongst Pilates teachers about that, because we don't do it like that. That's not how it works, right? But Pilates for me, I'm a hyper mobile person. So which means all my joints are very flexible, and not very stable. That was amazing for me when I was a dancer, but it's not so amazing for moving through your life and not having millions of injuries. And for me, the stability that Pilates brought to my joints is what allows me to do things like whitewater rafting and ziplining and not get hurt, right? So because I think people don't really understand like even you know, when we went ziplining today, there are still things that I carry with me from before I did Pilates like I always have to worry watch my shoulders because your shoulders are your most I can never say the word vulnerable joint. And the way you have to hold on to the zipline you got you guys can't see me but you have to reach behind you And then you kind of use that hand as a break. And that was sort of making me nervous, putting my shoulder in that position. But because I do Pilates, I was fine. But I feel 100% confident that had I not done Pilates, that I definitely could have hurt myself doing that. And that's sort of what Pilates has done. For me, Pilates can be really powerful for anyone, particularly for people with back stuff. So if you have any kind of back stuff going on, if I had to pick one thing, that Pilates can fix the most, it's your back, right, and you have to remember, you're not going to a physical therapist, so you're not going to come in, and that person is going to work on the injury, we're actually going to work around it. But the exercises that we're going to do, are going to heal your body. So for example, if you have a knee injury, we're going to work around it. And as we do those exercises, your pelvis is going to get into a better place, your feet are gonna get stronger, because there's a close chain between your hip and your knee and your foot. So most times when there's a knee injury, it's either coming from the bottom up, or from the top down, right, they're always connected. Like when I see someone, they say like I have a foot thing, I'm automatically looking at their knee and their hip, and vice versa. So it's like, literally the most powerful thing I've ever done. I feel really blessed and lucky to have learned it from amazing sources. And actually, I in the spring, I'm going to be doing a teacher training program. So I'm going to be passing along some of that knowledge. So I think basically, it's this idea of full body strength, like we think of Pilates, we have to go to Pilates, because we need a strong core, and you will 100% get a strong core. But by the time you're done and you not done, but by the time you really have a good grasp on Pilates, every single exercise is going to be a full body workout. Amazing. Yeah, it's pretty it's and when you think that he created this 75 years ago, and you know, some of the quotes I share on my Instagram that he wrote 50 years ago that makes total sense to us now in this enlightened world that we live in, probably made no sense to the people in the world that he lived in, right, because you know, he was in New York at that time where the women were going to those gyms where like the belt would go around their waist, and like shake them. And that was like the workout like

Melissa Wiggins  22:23

the thing I love about the Pilates, like you said, and one of the reels or posts that you did post retreat was, look, everybody's body shape is different. There's tall people, small people, like different shapes of bodies, like we're all different. And yet we were all getting the benefit of it. And on retreat, you always comment you know, we get to do it with trees around us or on a dog or by a fireplace. And so it's like, the most magical type of Pilates that I think that you could do. Yeah, this beautiful way to get us into the day. And we do it every morning, we're doing that before we start doing any of the main stuff, because the whole retreat is about that mind body connection. And that's one thing that I think I learned about Pilates and the process of having you teach me is that I'm really learning to be conscious. At the same time. 1,000% I'm being very, isn't like I'm really having to focus on this thing. And I'm increasing my consciousness, which then in turn is helping me much easier, really get tuned in when I have to go do to the meditation part later or more of the somatic exercises later. And I think that's not something that I really hear too much talked about before. And I'm sure it is in the Pilates world, but I just don't know,

Sue McCarroll  23:50

well, and I will set a style of bodies that I teach I do not do with the students. So when I teach them Pilates, I'm standing up looking at the beautiful lake, and I'm using my words, but there are very few things in our life nowadays, where we have to listen to someone's voice without visual input, and take that from our mind and translate. That's a that's a lot of steps. And that's really hard. And I'm not saying that to like discourage you from doing it. I'm saying it's exactly what our minds need as we age. Right. So it's not just an exercise of the body.

Melissa Wiggins  24:26

Yeah, you and I have joked around about that, because you're always like, Melissa, you can make comment the other day about oh, what did I say? Oh, yeah, I needed to go to the bathroom so many times on my drive home, and you're like you need to do more Pilates.

Sue McCarroll  24:43

I know. That's like I feel like my little joke with everybody when people say something about an issue that I have. But the funny thing is I say that and I say it because I really truly believe it to be true. Like I really truly and and it's like you know the magic Have the exercises, you know, like, Yes, I'm I know how to teach them. And I know how to teach them well, but it's how they were designed. You know,

Melissa Wiggins  25:08

I think what I love so much about getting to do the retreat with you aside of the fact that I love you and adore you. And you know, we can have a pajama party when everybody leaves. The other part of that is we have like a health retreat with a Pilates retreat, with a mindset retreat and one like that's what we're able to achieve together. And it's just I love it. I mean, I want to go on our retreat. Yes. I would like to sleep in the bedroom.

Sue McCarroll  25:41

Yes, I agree. Yes, no, I agree completely. And it's like really cool for me that I may not be on the retreat as a guest. But being able to step aside, and maybe I'm still working, but I'm stepping aside of my everyday life, and I'm able to really pour into these women. And that helps fill my cup too. So I mean, I think at the very first retreat, people were like, Oh, you're doing so much work for the cooking. And then and I'm like, No, I'm so excited to cook for people that actually want to eat my food, because I have 213 year olds and a 10 year old. And generally, they do like a good amount of the things I make. But I get a lot of like, Oh, that's horrible. I don't want that.

Melissa Wiggins  26:26

Yeah. And everybody loves it, and wants to know more about it, and why it's good for them. And that's what I love, like, come the end of the retreat. Their body is like lubricated and move their mind has believed that they can do challenges and hard things. And their bellies are full. So they're like leaving and they're just feeling so reset. And you're a massive part of that. So I felt like you needed to come on the podcast and tell everybody why you are a part of the retreat. And I feel like we get that

Sue McCarroll  26:58

we did and I'll leave you with one thought. When I went food shopping this time, in the years past or in the retreats past, I would just like keep filling the cart toilet overflowed. So I decided a new strategy this time, and I got all of the produce first because that could sit in the car while I got the rest. And I purchased an entire Publix like the full size shopping cart, Publix of produce, it was completely full. And the only thing that I had purchased at that point was produce. And ironically, for people that feel like eating healthy is too expensive. That cart was way cheaper than the cart of you know, the fish that I bought and other things that I bought that were not from that produce section. So it's like, honestly, eating fresh like that is actually cheaper than and we

Melissa Wiggins  27:49

had so much food. So much food. Yes,

Sue McCarroll  27:52

I will say that's where like the Italian meat comes out. And I feel like I need to buy. I don't want anyone to go hungry.

Melissa Wiggins  27:58

Yeah, nobody goes hungry on your three. I don't think we know. We got definitely not delicious. All right, well, where can everybody find you? I will link up everything on the show notes. But where do they? Where should they visit your stuff first.

Sue McCarroll  28:16

So uh, my personal business is Opel wellness studio that's on Instagram. It's at Opel underscore wellness underscore studio. And that is where I spend most of my time on Instagram, although we are currently branching out into some other places, but they're not ready yet. I am on Facebook as well at the same same address. And then I have a Facebook group called the opal Life Group, which is just a group that anybody can join, and I share lots of different health related things in there. And then I have a podcast called the well to you podcast, and the podcast. Instagram is at well to you podcast. Well, number two, and then why are you

Melissa Wiggins  28:57

and it's amazing, you should definitely listen to it. But I'll link everything up there. And then I'll also link the retreat for anybody that is listening to this in real time because we have another retreat in April. We always have them April and October. So

Sue McCarroll  29:12

and I will say if anybody wants to zoom in to Pilates class if you're not local to New Jersey, that is all my classes are hybrid.

Melissa Wiggins  29:20

Yes. Amazing. All right. Well, thank you so much. Sue McCarroll. We love you. I love you. You're amazing.

Sue McCarroll  29:28

I love you too. I love you too. And I can't wait till April.

Melissa Wiggins  29:31

I know seriously.