E78: From Couch to Confidence, Dr. Sara Ionescu's Guide to Fun and Easy Exercise

Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week, I am joined by Dr. Sara Ionescu, a board-certified family medicine physician and exercise enthusiast. In this episode, Dr. Ionescu shares her journey from a competitive swimmer to balancing exercise with a busy professional and personal life. She emphasizes the importance of redefining what exercise means, shifting from vigorous, lengthy sessions to more manageable, shorter intervals. Dr. Ionescu provides practical tips for maintaining consistency, including having a backup workout plan and celebrating small wins in movement.

We discuss the significance of giving yourself grace on days when exercise isn’t possible and the benefits of active recovery, such as stretching and deep core exercises. Dr. Ionescu also highlights the importance of incorporating strength training for maintaining overall health, especially as we age. Finally, she encourages listeners to find joy in different forms of exercise, whether it’s running, dancing, or any activity that brings excitement.

Dr. Sara Ionescu is a board certified family medicine physician, wife, mom of 4, and exercise enthusiast. She is passionate about wellness, preventative care, and exercise and loves to inspire others to move. She strives to stay physically active daily as she sees massive physical and mental health benefits with this and wants to help, inspire and encourage others to do the same!

00:00 - Introduction
00:28 - Welcoming Dr. Sara Ionescu
02:40 - Transition from Competitive Athlete to Busy Professional
04:55 - Reframing Exercise: From Vigor to Manageable Intervals
09:00 - Celebrating Small Wins in Exercise
12:50 - Practical Tips for Consistency
17:10 - The Importance of Giving Yourself Grace
19:33 - Active Recovery and Stretching
21:52 - Incorporating Strength Training
24:53 - Final Advice and Encouragement

Connect with Dr. Sara Ionescu
Instagram: @drsaraionescu
YouTube: @DrSaraIonescu
Facebook: facebook.com/drsaraionescu
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drsaraionescu
Website: drsaraionescu.com

Connect with Dr. Reller
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprout.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearwaterFamily
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clearwaterfamilymedicine/
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy Website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwaterallergy/home

Subscribe to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, iheartradio, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pandora.

Transcript

kerry: 0:28

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller and today we have a very special guest, Dr. Sara Ionescu. Hope that I didn't butcher it. Yeah, welcome to the podcast.

Sara: 0:43

Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

kerry: 0:46

Yeah. So I always ask everybody, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. So please share.

Sara: 0:54

Yeah, absolutely. So like you said, I'm Sara Ionescu. I am a board certified family medicine physician. I'm a wife. I'm a mom of four little kiddos. And I am an exercise enthusiast. So I was a competitive athlete growing up. And then when I got on the path of Working a job and then, going to med school and then getting married and having babies I kind of fell off the exercising path because I couldn't figure out how to do it by myself. I was so used to it being prescribed in the past. And so then over time, the more kids I had, I started realizing how important exercise was in my life. And I kind of started figuring some things out. And Then fast forward made a transition to be a stay at home mom for a while, which is what I'm still currently doing. But in that time period, I also realized how passionate I was about sharing some of my tips and things that I figured out with exercising consistently along the way, because I know When I was practicing, that was such a huge barrier for patients. And I thought, man, I figured some of this stuff out. Maybe I have some important things to share. And so kind of got into doing some social media, posting exercise content there, which I was terrified to do, but now I'm really enjoying it. And so that's kind of where I'm at now. I'm not sure exactly where that will go. I'm just having fun trying to educate people and make exercise less scary to get started with if you're not somebody that does it regularly. Exactly.

kerry: 2:31

Yeah, you're having fun making exercise fun. Cause that's what we should be telling everybody that is right. It's fun.

Sara: 2:37

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

kerry: 2:40

So tell me a little bit about like why you have always had a passion for what did you, what sport did you do a sport growing up or what's the story?

Sara: 2:48

interestingly, so I was a competitive swimmer. I started when I was really like five years old on the swim team. And that was the sport that my mom chose for my brother and I, because she never learned how to swim and she still does not know how to swim. But so she was very, you know, adamant that we were going to know how to swim. She wanted us to be safe whenever we were around water and it just kind of naturally progressed into swim lessons and then swim team. And then we both really enjoyed it. And so I kind of continued that throughout school, high school and college. And so like I said, as a competitive athlete, I think so much of your exercise is predetermined by someone else. There's not a lot of thinking involved. Like you just kind of show up when you're supposed to show up and you do it. And then What happened is when that ended, like when college ended, I just sort of was in this mode of like, how do I even do that? Like, I just didn't even know what to do when I was by myself. I didn't know what type of workouts to do. I wasn't even sure what I liked and swimming was wonderful when I was younger, but it is a little bit more of a challenging exercise to do because like, obviously, you have to have water, whether it's a pool or an ocean, and then you kind of need a little bit more specific equipment. It's not as easy as like, get outside and walk. And so that's where I kind of navigated this struggle of trying to figure out, you know, what other types of activity brought me joy and how to incorporate them into a busy life.

kerry: 4:24

Yeah, so you basically took the guidance from your coaches and everything, they gave you your prescription for exercise, right? And then you didn't know how to translate that. And when you didn't have that prescription anymore. So that's definitely difficult. I think a lot of anybody who grows up somewhat being an athlete probably has that transitional period of how you can make it more of a role in your new life without, you know, being, you got to be a practice. You got to be at weight training, so how did you kind of move on from there from what you were kind of doing before?

Sara: 4:55

So I think really when I, and I didn't realize any of this when I was doing it, it's all reflection now on the like transitions that I had at the time. But honestly, most of it was mindset related. So the biggest thing for me was like reframing and redefining it what exercise is because anybody that's been an athlete, especially a college athlete, no matter what division you are, you are exercising for hours a day, and sometimes it's twice a day. And so I was under this impression that exercise equaled, I must be vigorously exercising, sweating, high heart rate, and For like at a minimum, 45 minutes an hour, but really even more than that a day. And so then when my phase of life changed and I decided to go to med school and it was like, yeah, no way, like that time does not exist if I want to be able to sleep and thrive in other areas of my life, I started to realize like this is not going to work. And I struggled with that really for years because it was either I would find that amount of time somehow or, if I couldn't, I just didn't move at all. It was like, well, I can't do that, so I'm just not going to exercise, because it won't count, in quotation marks. So, When I sat down to redefine it, it was really when I had my first child, it became clearer and clearer that like these days where I would have that time to work out like in a competitive athlete, we're never going to exist again, most likely, at least not for a very long time. And so that's when I realized, okay, I need to make a new definition of what this is for me and my life right now. And what I had been telling patients. Every single day patients that said, I don't exercise, I don't know what to do, doc. Like, what do I do? And it was like, can you find one minute a day to move, to be active? And inevitably everybody sometimes even begrudgingly were like, yeah, I guess I can find one minute. And so then it was like, just get up, like you don't need fancy clothes. You don't need sneakers. Just get up and walk around your couch for a minute, walk up and down your stairs for a minute. And I was literally in the room with a patient saying this out loud to them. And in my head, I was like, Why am I not listening to this? Like, this is wonderful advice, I think, in hindsight. Why am I not listening to this myself? And so then it was just like that moment where then I realized, okay, this is where I'm going to start. I'm just going to start doing this. So that was the biggest thing was reframing it. The other thing was celebrating wins about exercise. So just as an example, We had two dogs when we had our first daughter, and I usually, with my daughter, we would walk them every single day for like 30 minutes, at least. I never counted that towards any kind of movement, any kind of healthy activity. It was just kind of like a chore to check off the box, and when I started going through some of these like mindset transitions, it was like, wait a minute, I'm walking, which is active. I'm moving more than I would be otherwise. Why does that 30 minutes not count as exercise? So it was these kinds of things that when I started to think about it in that way, it almost was wild the way things started to change because I realized, okay, if all I can do today is a minute, perfect, that's what I'm going to do. And at least I showed up for that. And that has helped me over the years become even more consistent and be able to expand that time that I have even if it's not. A chunk of time that's next to each other because anybody that has more than one kid that is little knows that even finding 15 minutes next to each other where you're uninterrupted is not always possible and so then I've pivoted and said, Okay, I can do five minutes three times a day or I kind of Get creative with with how to do it

kerry: 9:00

I definitely like that. I had something kind of similar like I used to think that if I wasn't Drenched in sweat I didn't have a good workout or anything like that. And, you know, some reasons why I always kind of veered against yoga, unless it was hot yoga or things like that, you know, but I think, you know, kind of reframing it's really important. And I would say after I had my kids, I would, try to get back and working out and getting frustrated if they interrupted my workout, but I mostly now would accept it as okay so if they crawl all over me when I'm working out, that's fine. As long as I got something done, even if it doesn't have to be at like the highest level or whatever. So I think it's really reframing. It is really important. That's a really good way to look at it for sure. And then. And let me ask you this. So sometimes I tell my patients, maybe I shouldn't be, but like if they have an active job that, you know, that's just their normal activity level. I'm not necessarily counting that as their quote exercise, but is that something wrong? Do you think I shouldn't say that? I mean, I said it counts some, it's more like your activity level, but should I say it doesn't count as exercise?

Sara: 10:06

I so I no I don't think that's wrong I think that Helping them frame that as a like as a win that they are able to be active at work But if that's you know, I always would try to like meet the patient where they are, right? So if that's already their baseline like there's always room for improvement So you can maybe add in and that's what I would even tell the patients that weren't moving like so you start with the minute a day And you're moving, but then, okay, maybe tomorrow you can find a minute twice a day, or you can do two minutes, and I actually had patients coming back saying like, Doc, I was up for a minute, and then I thought, well, I'm already up, like, I may as well keep going, because you almost, he was like telling me that he felt almost silly to stop after a minute, because he was already up and going, like, You know, so no, I don't think that's wrong. But I think like I said, like meeting patients where they are, and then encouraging them to add layers and improve, but still recognizing that moving at work if you have the ability to do that is awesome. It's, you know, especially because so many people now have jobs where they really can't do that. And they're sitting all day, which We all know is not the greatest for really any part of our bodies, but especially as you get older with things like stiffness and mobility and all of that.

kerry: 11:21

Yeah, yeah, I usually would say, okay, so you have to move anyway for the work, but what purposeful activity can you change? So maybe they're already working and running around the hospital, but maybe they can be taking the stairs instead of the elevator while they're at work too. And I would say that counts because that's increasing like that neat activity. Yeah.

Sara: 11:40

Absolutely.

kerry: 11:41

And then you mentioned like these shorter intervals. So sometimes I like to call them like exercise snacks. I was just talking to someone else about that, that you can add in throughout the day, which I think is great. And another thing that you mentioned was sometimes you kind of just go for a minute and then, oh, yeah, you want to continue longer. But sometimes it's the habit of, you know, scheduling it or putting the shoes on or whatever it is to, like, get you out the door going. And then once you are going, sometimes you just feel better and you're more motivated to continue it if you have time or whatever. Right.

Sara: 12:14

Yeah, absolutely. And that's something that I did and I still use for myself sometimes because I'm typically a morning exerciser. But of course, there are days where you're like, No, I just want to stay in bed. So a lot of times my little like brain trick will be just get up and start. And if after a minute you want to be done, then just be done. But it's like, at the end of that 60 seconds, it's like, Oh my gosh, I'm already dressed, I'm up. Like, what am I gonna do? Get back in my pajamas and go back? You know, it's like the likelihood that you're not gonna continue is a lot less than when you're already there and you have that momentum going.

kerry: 12:50

Mm hmm. Yeah. So you talk about reframing celebrating wins. Obviously I think another way to celebrate wins I don't know if you were going to go into it is kind of maybe logging your exercise or checking it off like you said like a habit tracker because that gets a nice little. dopamine hit of seeing all the stuff that you've done and that's kind of exciting or maybe if it's weights you can write down the weights you can see if you got stronger or things like that, right? What else do you have that you usually suggest to everybody?

Sara: 13:21

Another thing is I started always having a backup workout plan. I always try to be prepared which is I'm rolling like a lot of tips into one but I always try to be prepared meaning I have all the stuff out and ready so that none of the potential uninterrupted time I have is taken up by like finding my sneakers getting out clothes all that stuff So I kind of always try to make sure that's ready the night before and then when I do that Part of my habit stacking which is where you kind of line things up so that it's easier to keep going Is I sit down and I plan what my workout is so what I found because i'm like Many doctors and a lot of people that are busy. I'm very Type A. So if I couldn't meet that prescribed workout that I came up with for myself, then I'd be like, okay, not doing it today. Like, we'll just save that one for tomorrow, and I would just not work out. So what I figured out is if I had like a Plan B workout, which is my backup workout, if I woke up late or I don't know, like I was on call and I got a phone call, whatever it was, like something interrupted the amount of time I thought I was going to have, I would have a backup workout, whether that was a shorter version of what I was planning to do or something completely different than I would go to that. So that at least I still had some movement exercise planned in there. And I felt less, I don't want to say bad, but like I felt so much more proud of myself if I was able to pivot and keep going instead of let that barrier make me not move at all, if that makes sense.

kerry: 14:59

No, that's yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think that's awesome. I always talk to some people about having a backup, like meal plan. Like if, you know, you don't have time to make the meal and you want to, you need to go to a restaurant, like a fast casual or something, well, what's the backup meal plan? Where can you get a healthy meal kind of thing? So that would be something similar. And then, you know, what if it rains and you were supposed to go for a walk or something, and maybe you don't want to go in the rain or the snow is crazy. I don't know. So yeah, you're right. You can either change the workout that you had planned or adjust accordingly. And I think that it's a really, actually really good idea. And if you have some other elaborate, more complicated workout, you can also do something, you know, simple to like go for an extra walk or something like that. Maybe up a hill or up some stairs or something like that. But yeah, that's a really good backup plan. I like that. And then you mentioned the habit stacking and being prepared and having things set out. And that's obviously important to kind of get yourself going. Yeah. What, what else do you got?

Sara: 15:57

Probably one of the last ones I can think of is to give yourself grace. So that kind of, it's kind of like in there, we've kind of alluded to it, but I think there are going to be days where it may not be pot like you may just not be able to fit it in and that's okay. It doesn't mean you have to like throw the entire week away or throw the month away. And that was something that I with exercise, but also with like healthier choices for eating. I really struggled with when I was younger. It was sort of like if I felt like I made a mistake, or got off course, then the whole week was done and I would start again on Monday. But then if you're doing that over and over again, you're spending more time not on the path you want to be than the path you do want to be. And so, you know, there may be days where you may not be able to do your backup workout or you may just not be able to do what you want to do And that's okay. You kind of like learn the lesson see if you can find anything to do next time But then you kind of let it go and just get back to it the next like it doesn't have to be a Five day recovery from that one Day, it can be just keep going just keep rolling

kerry: 17:10

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you're going to have to plan for getting sick one day and missing it or plan for not having time, not having energies, many reasons of not being able to fit it in that day. And I think that's, it is important to kind of give yourself grace, but you mentioned recovery. Do you recommend days off or rest days or do you think that there should be something like light and maybe that helps keep consistency?

Sara: 17:33

So I think it depends person to person and what your like main activities are, what your drivers for exercise are, if you're training for something specific, or if you're just kind of, you know, you're trying to stay healthy and be active. For me, I have recovery days, but it's never a problem. Yeah. where I do nothing because I struggled with consistency if I skipped days completely. So a lot of times my more active recovery days, I guess you would call them, or really sometimes it's passive recovery, but I will do stretching. Like at a minimum every day I stretch and I do a lot of deep core exercises every day and that has to do with my multiple pregnancies and postpartum periods and just wanting to keep that abdominal area strong. And not even just for women that have been pregnant, but really any human that is exercising, deep core strength is hugely important for your low back. It can help with balance and spine health and all of that. But so like typically, even if I only have a few minutes, I will try to do a stretch and some deep core and those are typically what my more recovery type days would look like. And like I said, for me, like I've learned through experiments, having something every day really helped me with the consistency, but it's also safe enough and gentle enough where, you know, I'm not doing some wild, vigorous, super sweaty workout, you know, seven days a week.

kerry: 19:08

And the important thing is it counts, right? So

Sara: 19:11

Oh, exactly.

kerry: 19:11

I like track all of my things. So I mean, I would put that in my little tracker so that I can see that I stretched on that day or whatever it was. Yeah. And then I like to have some sort of movement and if you don't your Fitbit or your Apple watch and all those kinds of things yell at you if you don't have something. So even just making sure to check it off, that light activity counts, right? Sometimes my husband and I started walking at my daughter's soccer practice around the field. And then I was like, Oh, I'm going to put that in there and I'm like, why am I not putting that in there? So I count that now toward like my mileage or whatever I'm doing for the year. So, yeah, I think it's nice to you know, make sure that, that everything that you do counts. And if you're tracking it to feel good about it or see how you improve, I think that's all important things to o. So what's your favorite exercise What do you like to do?

Sara: 20:06

probably my favorite right now is running. I kind of transitioned to running after swimming because it was just kind of like, I don't know. I, it was like an endurance type thing and I got into doing longer running races. And then I took a break for a long time because I had pain and injuries and stuff. And I recently got back into it again with the reframing because I thought if you don't run, x Minutes per mile you are not a runner. So for years I was like, well, I can't run because I can't run that fast anymore. And then I did like this Intro to running program and it was like, oh, like you can run, you can be jogging and you're still a runner. You can take walking breaks and you're still a runner. And it was like, oh, this is fun. Like I, so I, anyway, so I'm back into running right now.

kerry: 20:57

Yeah, that's great. I have a hard time because I'm not very fast and I'm more of a distance thing too. And I'm like, oh, I'm not really runner. I'm running. Yeah, but no, I'm slow.

Sara: 21:07

That's,

kerry: 21:07

no, I think it's yeah. Yeah, I know. It's okay. And I have, Honestly, one of my goals was to get a little bit faster this year. And lately it's been so hot already in Tampa area. So I was like, as long as I get out the door and try to run, if I have to walk, that's fine, cause it's been already brutal. Yeah, it's like August already and it's, it's not August right now. It's June 5th. So anyway yeah, I mean, I think, you know, giving yourself grace once again is I'm, I'm starting to learn to do that even with myself.

Sara: 21:41

Yeah, that's good.

kerry: 21:43

Yeah. Just get out the door and run if I have to walk. Okay. But it has helped to just think of it in that way. Do you do any weight training or have you in the past?

Sara: 21:52

I do. I did in the past. That was like part of our, you know, part of the prescription from the coaches. That was one area that I really had a hard time with as an adult. And I got back into it. Well, my husband and I used to do it together. Because he was really into it. And so he was kind of the coach and would be like, here's what we're going to do. And I didn't have to think about it. But then once we had kids, it became with our work schedules and kids, it became a little more complicated to find the time to do it together. I did recently get back into it a few months ago, because I did again, with that intro to running program, I did an intro to strength Training, which was awesome because it was like built in. It was a full body thing. And so now I kind of refresh my brain with like the different exercises, the different moves, proper form, all of that. And so I do think strength training is so important, especially as we get older, because it really helps. It just helps maintain your body as you age. So I think that is definitely an important piece in everybody's exercise routine and it doesn't have to be complicated. It doesn't have to be I have a full home gym with a set of, you know, multiple sized weight dumbbells. Like it can be, you can do it body weight and it still counts as strength training.

kerry: 23:11

Yeah, exactly. I try to tell my patients, you know, just try to do simple things that you would do, you know, with your body weight. Maybe it's squatting down to sit on a chair lunges, if they're able or, pushing and pulling things like those are the key things to longevity, you know, being able to do these same motions that we do, you know, in our daily lives,

Sara: 23:31

Day to day. Right,

kerry: 23:32

and things like that. So I try to encourage them to do that as well. And the physical activity guidelines For America or whatever it is called, they recommend, you know, strength training at least twice a week and the moderate intensity cardiovascular activity 150 minutes a week. So trying to fit it all in is a little difficult, but I think people are able to do it. And I think the biggest thing is just to try.

Sara: 23:55

exactly. Yeah. And just get started, even if it's small, because then you can build from there.

kerry: 24:01

Yeah. Do you have any other advice for the listeners today?

Sara: 24:04

Yeah, I mean, probably what I just said, which is just get started like it doesn't have to be perfect and there will never be a right time to start your exercise journey. You can't wait for that. You just have to get out there and try it. And then you can pivot adjust, find things that get you excited or bring you joy. That's what I would always tell my patients. Like find an activity that makes you excited to do it. It doesn't have to be what everyone else is doing, but find something that gets you excited because then you're more likely to maintain that consistency if you're looking forward to it.

kerry: 24:37

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it could be dancing. It could be barre it could be, you know boxing. I don't know anything that, that people really like to enjoy that may be a little bit different. And sometimes we don't think of those other things, but they definitely count if you're purposely going to Go do these things.

Sara: 24:53

Exactly.

kerry: 24:55

And if people want to follow you or can, how can they find you?

Sara: 24:59

yeah, sure. So I post videos on YouTube. I do a weekly video and then I do shorts every single day. So I'm at Dr. DR Sara Ionescu so exactly what my name is, S-A-R-A-I-O-N-E-S-C-U, and that's also my Facebook and Instagram handles. And then I also have a website if people are interested in signing up for my free newsletter. And that's also, my name, Dr. Dr. Sara Ionescu. com.

kerry: 25:29

Awesome. Well, thank you we'll include all of that in the show notes and thank you so much for coming on the podcast today

Sara: 25:36

Yes. Thanks for having me.