Walking for Wellness with Carolyn Cohen

Episode Summary:
In today's episode of Blasphemous nutrition, Health Coach Carolyn shares her personal journey towards becoming an advocate for walking as a powerful tool for improving health. Raised by a health-conscious mother, Carolyn initially rebelled against her upbringing and believed that her health was not affected by her lifestyle choices. However, after being diagnosed with IBS and experiencing the challenges of balancing work and motherhood, Carolyn began walking as a way to manage her stress and improve her overall well-being.  In their conversation, Aimee and Carolyn discuss the benefits of walking and rebelling against the all-or-nothing notion of change and encourage making small, sustainable changes to improve health.

Guest Bio:
Carolyn Cohen graduated from Brown University, and has an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern.  After working 10 years in consumer packaged goods marketing, Carolyn faced a chronic illness diagnosis, and was able to heal from it. Realizing how much power we hold over our own health trajectory, she re-focused her career path, and became a health coach in 2009. Since that time, Carolyn Cohen has seen countless clients struggle with making behavior changes. They often believe they must shoot for the stars, and abandon life as they formerly knew it. Carolyn helps them mine the health gold that’s in the smaller, more doable changes. As a wellness guide, whether she’s in your ears via her Wellness While Walking podcast or she’s across the desk in a coaching session, Carolyn gently educates and encourages you, taking you from fine to fabulous!

Key Takeaways:

• Walking can be a powerful tool for improving health and well-being, even in small increments of time.
• It is important to find joy in movement and choose activities that align with individual interests and values.
• Making small, sustainable changes to daily routines, such as walking after meals or incorporating movement into everyday tasks, can have a significant impact on overall health.
• Walking provides an opportunity for mindfulness and connection with the surrounding environment.
• Multitasking during walks, such as taking photos or engaging with others, can enhance the experience and make it more enjoyable.

 Notable Quotes:

• "Walking can be fun, it can be varied, and it doesn't have to feel extreme. It doesn't have to be something out of the realm of what we do already." - Carolyn Cohen
• "Walking is one of those incredible opportunities to pair something else along with it. It can be used to check off other boxes and not simply walking." - Carolyn Cohen

Resources:

Photography by:

Find Research Citations and Transcript at Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Work with Aimee

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

How to Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts
Via iOS Device
1. Open Apple Podcast App (purple app icon that says Podcasts).
2. Go to the icons at the bottom of the screen and choose “search”
3. Search for “Blasphemous Nutrition”
4. Click on the SHOW, not the episode.
5. Scroll all the way down to “Ratings and Reviews” section
6. Click on “Write a Review” (if you don’t see that option, click on “See All” first)
7. Rate the show on a five-star scale (5 is highest rating) and write a review!
8. Bask in the glow of doing a good deed that makes a difference!

Transcript

0:00

Hey Rebels, welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. Consider this podcast your pantry full of clarity, perspective, and the nuance needed to counter the superficial health advice so freely given on the internet. I'm Aimee, the unapologetically candid host of Blasphemous Nutrition and a double degreed nutritionist with 20 years experience. I'm here to share a more nuanced take. On living and eating well to sustain and recover your health. If you've found most health advice to be so generic as to be meaningless, We're so extreme that it's unrealistic, and you don't mind the occasional F bomb. You've come to the right place. From dissecting the latest nutrition trends to breaking down published research and sharing my own clinical experiences, I'm on a mission to foster clarity amidst all the confusion and empower you to have the health you need to live a life you love. Now let's get started. To celebrate national walking day in the United States. I've invited health coach Carolyn Cohen onto the show today. To talk to us about the importance of movement and utilizing something that seems as simple as walking to make profound changes in your health. Carolyn graduated from brown university and has an MBA from the Kellogg graduate school of management at Northwestern. After working 10 years in consumer packaged goods marketing, Carolyn faced a chronic health illness diagnosis and was able to heal from it. Realizing how much power we hold over our own health trajectory. She refocused on her career path and became a health coach back in 2009. Since that time, Carolyn Cohen has seen countless clients struggle with making behavior changes. They often believe they must shoot for the stars and abandon their life as they formerly knew it. So Carolyn helps them mine the health gold that is in the smaller, more doable changes. As a wellness guide, whether she's in your ears via her wellness while walking podcast or she's across the desk and a coaching session, Carolyn gently encourages and educates you, taking you from fine to fabulous. I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy our conversation today. I have absolutely loved getting to know Carolyn. She feels like a kindred spirit and We had just a wonderful conversation, which I am. Thrilled to be able to share with you today. So if you have the opportunity. Put on your shoes step outside and let this podcast fill your ears while you walk with Carolyn. And I. You

Aimee 2:47

Health coach, Carolyn, welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. I'm so excited to have you here.

Carolyn 2:55

I am so happy to be here and I fancy myself a little bit of a rebel, so I think it's a natural fit.

Aimee 3:02

You belong here, my dear. That's awesome. Don't kick me out. For those who don't listen to your podcast yet, why don't you share a little bit about yourself and how you came to be such an advocate for walking?

Carolyn 3:17

Awesome. Thank you for the opportunity. And I'm really, like I said, so happy to be here. My story is a little bit about rebellion in that I was raised by a health nut mama ahead of her time. Her goal was to keep my dad alive and all the men in his family died early of heart disease. And so she was determined to keep them alive and just. Spoiler alert, he is alive. But I was collateral damage in that effort in that my childhood was very unlike a lot of the kids that I knew almost everybody. and, I wasn't really seeing that I was any better off for it than anybody else. And so I, as soon as I had any autonomy. I rebelled against that whole thing and I'm like, it doesn't matter what we eat. It doesn't matter what we do. I'm good. Thanks mom. I appreciate it, but no, thank you. And, that was all well and good until my early thirties. And I got a diagnosis of IBS irritable bowel syndrome. So that was the first thing to go awry. on my own health journey. And at that time I was living in a suburb of Boston. I had a very demanding, corporate kind of job downtown. I had a newborn child and she went with me downtown where she went to daycare. And I was frazzled all the time because I just was working so much less than my job had demanded, of me and I was stressed. And then I felt like I wasn't doing a great job. As a parent, because, I was away from her all day long and so on. And so I certainly wasn't taking care of myself at all. And I think, IBS was not that common a diagnosis back then even. And and miraculously I found a doctor who didn't immediately put me on medication but called, He called my stress level, kind of part of the equation, which is amazing. And so he suggested that I walk. And, I did a little walking because I had to rush to get her to daycare rush to pick her back up. But I wasn't really doing kind of any intentional movement. And I was doing a lot of sitting, obviously. I did start to walk and we would try to get out after work, depending on, the day, even once we got home, because usually then it was like dinner and so on. But and then definitely over the weekends. And it was something I could take her on and sometimes she'd sleep and sometimes not, but I just felt like I didn't feel guilty, being away from her further. I really did start to feel better. And it was, it wasn't the only thing I did. I did change up some other habits. But I was like, wow this wasn't really that bad, but I filed it away. I didn't change my whole approach to health or anything. And I was really determined once I had kids and I ended up having four of them that I just wasn't going to do what it You know, had happened to me, which was, I felt like a kind of an extreme upbringing. But then, like I said, I they kept coming those children and they all had issues. Like it was at the time there was a book that came out that was like four A's and I forget what they were, but it was like autism allergies, ADHD several things that had just become epidemic. And my kids had allergies and ADHD and it was like one thing after another just felt like whack a mole. And then I really started to think that maybe, my mom had been on to something. So it was only a couple of decades and I still have hope with my own kids. But so I started to just do a boatload of, reading and research and, testing things out. And I have a picture of my second born is on my social media that like she's standing in front of a closet, like the pantry full of packaged goods that happens to be in extreme disarray. My kids look back and we had all that stuff. Cause like they, but I didn't go as wild. Like I still had. Like I, my tricks were many, I had many tricks up my sleeve, but I didn't deprive them. I just bored the heck out of them. So like we only bought one kind of crap cookie. And then I was like, you know what, if you still want it, keep eating it. But I'm not going to give you 20 because I know how the power, what the power of variety is. And I want to use that on the veggies. Thank you very much. And offer you a bunch of, veggies before dinner, when you're getting crabby and some sort of dip. As opposed to having 20 different kinds of cookies, because you'll never get bored. So I did, they were, it wasn't as extreme as my own upbringing, but I did know that as the responsible adult, I had to do something to try to help them not have all these illnesses that they were facing. So that sort of just sums up, I, you I found the power of walking. It was something I could continue to do. If I had a couple of kids in a stroller, we'd walk before we went to the bus stop or over to pick up the older kids at school, whatever. It just became a powerful part of my life. And, getting away when I could on my own, I started to enjoy the suburban area I was living in terms of his beauty when, my husband was home with the kids. And so it just became something. A big part of my life that I really appreciated. And at the same time, like I started to become interested in pursuing, becoming some sort of advocate for people taking kind of their power back as it relates to their health. Because I think, we're just totally not told how much power our lifestyle can have over our health and wellbeing. And we're not encouraged to pursue that. So that those two things happened in parallel.

Aimee 8:40

Yeah it's interesting. I do feel like there's a lot of talking past each other because it's common. In the medical world, there's a story that people want the quick fix, people want the pill and, doctors don't have time to talk about lifestyle anyway. And a lot of them feel if I just say this person should just go for a walk, they're going to roll their eyes and keep doing what they're doing anyway. So I'm just going to save my breath and prescribe this laxative or this stool bulkener or whatever. Everybody's happy, right? Yes, yeah. I don't think that's true. Certainly there are those people there, but I don't think that's true for most people. And I also think that a lot of patients don't have as much compassion for their physicians as perhaps is warranted because of the strain on the medical system. Sure. Taxed as doctors are and themselves quite unhealthy and feeling at a loss as to what to do because they're not well educated or empowered either to take power of their own health.

Carolyn 9:48

And even if they do know it's just the system's so not set up for them imparting. That knowledge, like you said, so it's just, and many, I would say almost all of them get into, the field because they want to help people heal. So it's, I agree. And sometimes I know that sometimes I get mad at the system, but when I think of an individual physician, I'm not mad at them,

Aimee 10:11

Yeah, exactly. No, actually, it's funny because I was having a conversation with a family member earlier today about some medical care that they've been receiving that I feel is subpar and did not mince words about my opinion. Yeah it's a very complex situation and you're spot on. The system is really set up to perpetuate shareholder profits.

Carolyn 10:36

Yeah. None, neither the physician nor the patient are really benefiting from this system, right?

Aimee 10:42

Exactly. Exactly. Other

Carolyn 10:44

powers that be.

Aimee 10:45

Yeah. And I love it now that we are in a time in the world where we have access to information, if we're curious to find answers on our own and to begin Looking for alternatives to standard of care when standard of care isn't meeting our needs.

Carolyn 11:07

I agree. And we have to be careful yeah, but to have the option to find out, I know you must as I've encountered so many of these as well, but there's so many cases of people, learning from others on something like a Facebook group, that where there's no downside to trying it. Or they run it past their physician and then try it where they've found incredible success. So I think that, it's not to be diminished in terms of the power that we have to actually do some reading and research, and then there's the, then there's the, the coffee mug that says don't confuse your Google search with my medical degree. And, That's a valid point as well. Exactly. There are, there are limits to both things.

Aimee 11:50

Yeah. Keeping an open mind and remaining curious, I think is important.

Carolyn 11:54

So important. And I find do you find the same, like some every now and then I just get like a tap on the shoulder, like your mind isn't completely open.

Aimee 12:03

Oh yeah. I totally have my biases. I, and I, when I am aware of them, I do my best to always call them out. Because I think that's also something that we need to be more transparent about is this is my bias and. Here it is. We all have them, right? We all have biases. We all have judgments. None of us are without them. But yet we try to hide them and pretend they're not there. And yeah

Carolyn 12:33

that's a danger, right? I think it's really so great if we can model that there is uncertainty and there is bias and, we're going to do the best we can within those things. And certainly try to be curious and question and really look at all the sides if we can, but sometimes it's hard to catch ourselves.

Aimee 12:49

It is, it's especially when I'm really attached to vegetables being the answer for everything. I hear you. I hear you. I love that. So Carolyn, how, tell me about, walking was your gateway into this world and your children. What about that experience has really inspired you to do what you have been doing, to really reach out to others and to be a motivator and instigator, if you will, for them to begin to take their own power back when it comes to their health? Yeah, thank you. I

Carolyn 13:29

think that really it comes down to the fact that what I did to change my health was just not that hard. And so it started to become obvious to me when I started to, when I became a health coach and started to work with people that there was a lot of feeling that everything had to be hard and had to be the most extreme. And oftentimes that was 180 degrees from where the person was themselves at that point. And I've seen it. So many times time and time again and what happens often not always because there are cases where people make a very extreme change on a dime, and it sticks, so I've seen that too. But too often, I felt like what would happen was somebody would go from let's say sedentary and want to immediately. Go to what is at the other end of the spectrum, which is like a marathon, run it's not just a run. It's and it's not just a 5k, we know couch to 5k, but like really training their eyes on something and for, and many people are able to do that, but sometimes what happens is, it's whatever change they're trying to make is a little too extreme for it to become something that can be a habit. Now that can be for a lot of reasons. A lot of people, I think probably underestimate the time and haven't made, cleared out time cleared out resources for whatever change they're going to make. Sometimes there might be an injury sometimes they might not find the joy in it. That kind of helps sustain it as something that we turn to all the time. But what I would see a lot of was people who would try something for whatever reason read about it in a magazine, heard about it from a neighbor, just decided that was the way to go and then not just revert back to, To, like a lesser step, but go back to where they were and sometimes really gave up on the whole endeavor. And so what I felt like walking to me when I first did it when I had IBS when I first really did it very intentionally showed me that it like it just doesn't have to be all or nothing. And I think that ends up being, fast forward now 27 years. All or nothing thinking is really a pitfall in so many ways. Yeah. So I see it play out in so many different ways, that same thing where it's like from, like from where we are to a very far away extreme and there's no benefit of anything in between. And so walking to me just is. It can be hard for people. There are people I've worked with who really have a hard time getting, to the end of the driveway and back, it's just been a very long time. There might be certain physical conditions happening and so on. So it's not always, it can be very challenging. But I think there's other people for whom it feels just so easy that it can't be beneficial. And so if you extrapolate that to health, right? other health realms, not just movement, let's say you're getting most of your meals on the go and you decide that, on Sundays you're going to cook your meals at home. That's so incredibly powerful. You start to change your taste buds, you start to, think that. It's not so hard. I just do it one day a week. They, you get the benefits and it's maybe fun. Maybe you find some joy in it that you didn't expect or find some sort of connection to someone else while you're doing it or some connection to something that you used to eat, when you were a child, whatever it is, all those little changes can be so beneficial. And what sometimes bothers me about the health world is like that. People like feel like they have to, that the fitness industry or whatever, like ratchets things up. Oh, like walking's great, but now let's run. We might give power walking in between, like it's always just let's ratchet it up. Like I, there was an exercise physiologist, his work, I admire. But she would say Okay. When you feel like you've mastered gentle yoga, you can go to power yoga. It's what if I just want to do gentle yoga? You know what I mean? What if that is really great for me? So I think that's just the beauty is that there's so many ways to do this and to. Engage in black and white thinking where you've, you define somehow or somebody does it for you, that there's one way. I think that's the biggest pitfall and that's why walking is so wonderful.'cause you really can, like you can just, with air quotes, walk Yeah. And have it, have so many impacts on your health and wellbeing.

Aimee 18:01

It is. It is really. Profoundly impactful and I think we do have that tendency to minimize it because most of us are in a place where we can take it for granted. So it doesn't, air quotes doesn't count. And as you were talking I was thinking of, I was thinking of the culture that we grew up in, no pain, no gain. Yes. And, that era was also, you can't ever be too rich or too thin. And I feel like we've really America has done an excellent job at really testing that theory out and finding out, no, wait, actually. Yeah. So true. Yes. We can be too rich, we can be too thin. You're so right. I'll play the game, it does zero, so that doesn't actually work out.

Carolyn 18:55

No, it doesn't. You're so right. I love that take.

Aimee 18:58

Yeah, and I really appreciate too the nod you gave to joy, and the importance of enjoying the movement that you're doing. You're so right. Because if you don't enjoy what you're doing. You are not likely to keep up you're just not likely to keep up with it. Like we all have as adults, we all have so many things we don't enjoy doing. When you're taking the time to do something for your health, if you can enjoy it, that's more motivation to keep doing it. Yes,

Carolyn 19:32

it really does help. And so there, there's so many options in so many of these steps that would make a difference on our health trajectory. So keep looking, keep looking for the thing that brings you that joy, because it will stick around that much more.

Aimee 19:46

What do you what sort of, I'm thinking of my husband as a young man who didn't find He didn't find a type of movement that he really enjoyed until adulthood. So what would you say to say his adolescent self or someone who yet hasn't found. movement that they like. Don't like to get, they, walking is boring. They are just more cozy on the couch. They don't like the smell of the pool. They are certainly not going to get in a gym and lift heavy things with grunting sweaty guys. What do you say to people who are really struggling to find movement that works for them?

Carolyn 20:28

Part of part of me usually does work with clients to think about what they actually did as a kid. So now you're really stumping me with not liking anything, but maybe there was something, when, if you really thought about it, that, did bring him joy that involved being up and out playing on the, jungle gym or playing some sort of, chase game with kids or whatever. But if really not, I would still urge people to just almost make a list of possible things. I've had people who swore that they didn't like exercise, find a sport that they liked, especially it's helpful if if you're getting in on something like pickleball, which I think like nobody really was, playing. There certainly were the tennis players and other people who had a little head start, but there's, I feel like there's always something that you can find that Involves movement, it could be literally volunteering at your local library if you're, a bookworm and volunteering to reshelf books like that is movement, really defining it broadly. We have a farm in our town, there, there are people there who, have told me that they don't do much else. So like they, they can come home super sore from the first time in the season where they're like lofting hay up into a high spot. It's not muscles that I necessarily use either all the time, so I would be sore too. But that they appreciate, being out, being in community. There are a lot of baby animals around and little kids come through and get, the, animals and like it's fun to be, in this little, microcosm where you're known and you're contributing and you're part of the fabric and you get to be outside and so on. So it's really defining it so incredibly broadly that you think about something where You have a value or an interest that aligns, it might be in a church, for example is there a way to be active in a church and be the instead of sitting, be the server, be the person who helps the elderly go through the, the buffet, like whatever it is to just add a little bit of moving around, because I think that once you do. You find that's really, it makes you feel good. Like somebody once said to me you like to pop up when, from the couch, when we're all together, yeah, I just feel like I know why I'll feel better if I actually get up, even though we're all hanging around and chatting and whatever, there's something about me that knows that I will feel better when I pop up and get, somebody, something, and then I might return. To being seated, but I do think that once we have that little bit of movement, we start to realize Oh, it does feel really good. We were meant to move. And I think that if we can get past all of the things our society does to keep us. Yeah. inactive, that we will feel better. Yeah.

Aimee 23:09

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's we Yeah, it's we do spend so much of our time sitting between the car and the desk and

Carolyn 23:19

It's it's really hard to fight against that. It really is. But even the smallest bit of getting up has been shown to help, like even a few minutes, And I think like sometimes if we're working and we're, engrossed in what we're doing, maybe we're in the zone or we're feeling flow. We're hyper focusing, it depends on what you call it, but, it can be really hard to, Make ourselves get up. And in some ways it's good to keep working on what you're working because there are those, if you're studying, for example, they're switching costs. Like I always tell my kids like when every time you look at your phone while you're studying, it takes you a period of time to come back and get engrossed again. But I do think that there has to be a balance because if we could sit and get engrossed in our work for hours on end, we're really not getting up and moving our bodies and, all the things that come from that, which we don't even think about, it's not just I don't know. Sometimes people think in terms of calories or whatever, but it's, I mean like the lubrication of our joints and the movement of our lymphatic system, which requires movement and you have so many benefits, the brain benefits, the getting oxygenated blood to our brains will help us do that work better once we sit back down. So it's just, there are so many ways we move less than our bodies were designed to, But then it's really not that onerous to get up a couple of times in the course of an hour and I and even to like buck the system in terms of like rebelling. Oh, absolutely. Okay, I know you're all seated around this conference room table, but I'm going to stand over here. And I, I used to say Oh I have a bad back and I can't sit for too long now. I just own it. It's I can't sit that long. I just can't. And so I'll stand up, and Like one of our mutual mentors used to say fit out. And I'm like, I am going to fit out. Yeah. Stand up over here.

Aimee 25:06

That's right.

Carolyn 25:08

Yeah,

Aimee 25:09

that's I love that idea of just being standing instead of sitting at the conference table for a meeting, right? Or instead of sitting at your desk during a Zoom call, stand instead. And one thing I've noticed for myself, if I have been at the desk for too long and I feel my focus is fading or I start to feel tired, that's my body telling me, you have been sitting too long. Get up and move. And simply like stepping outside, walking down to the end of the street and back and then coming in. I feel refreshed. I feel revitalized and I can then, sometimes begrudgingly sit back down and

Carolyn 25:50

get to work. Yeah, but the awareness is still there. Key just being aware and saying like to yourself Oh, I feel worse. I don't feel super accomplished. I'm feeling like I'm lagging. I'm not being as productive as I might be. And so on, and then appreciating how you feel after you come back, like that's all part of making it, into something that you would do more regularly.

Aimee 26:10

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's also to a time when people often take a break and they'll get something to eat to pick their energy up when they stepped outside and took a a fitness break, a fitness snack. Yep. That they would feel just as energized, if not more so and revitalized,

Carolyn 26:31

and even the health, like the health benefits of walking, we see in the headlines, or at least you and I probably do, cause that's what we're looking at, the X thousand steps, can help you do realize this. Benefit or Y thousand steps can help you realize that benefit. The amount of walking that needs to be done to realize health benefits is really not immense, and I think you have to just know yourself and if you're motivated by a certain number of steps, Then great, go for it. But you don't have to like in my mind I like to think did I walk today like that it's just like a yes or no binary question right did I get a walk in yeah and like I don't perseverate over steps. I think that for some people that's motivating and other people it's less helpful and maybe amount of time or did I walk after a couple of meals, walking after meals, it's incredibly powerful. And the research is just mounting there that in terms of, blood sugar regulation, one of the best things we can do is do the old Italian pasta, Jada, like the walk after meal. And I don't, I feel like in my mind, when I've been in Italy, that people are walking super fast, they're sauntering, they're using the large muscles of their bodies while they walk. And that is calling up for, those cells are calling up for sugar to come out of the bloodstream and into the muscles where they can be burned for fuel. And the impact on our. our blood sugar is tremendous by a 10 minute walk after a meal. So like maybe if people are tracking something, maybe it's not necessarily a number of steps, but it's did I walk after lunch and dinner

Aimee 28:12

a few minutes? It is really profound, the impact and yeah, it's not, they're, they don't speed walk in Europe. They meander, they stroll. They stroll, yes,

Carolyn 28:23

I love that.

Aimee 28:25

Mosey, saunter, I love all those things. It's usually, because oftentimes too, there, there are children in tow and children are not, in a linear direction for a long time at a high speed. They're all over the place. Exactly.

Carolyn 28:41

Exactly. I guess just the message that I love about walking as a metaphor is like it can be fun. It can be varied. It doesn't have to feel extreme. And it, doesn't have to be something like out of the realm of what we do already, the love that's at our fingertips and I feel like that's such a wonderful message and as National Walking Day in the US, maybe it's North America actually is It's Wednesday April 3rd this year. And and I love that walking's being celebrated. And I do think that is happening. The research is out there are, on TikTok, there are all kinds of fads about walking, but many of them involve young people and professional athletes have incorporated walking into their routines for, I feel like it's just coming into its own with all the research and everything. And I think people got a little taste of it during the pandemic. Back in March of 2020 was when, a lot of the U S started to stay closer to home. And I think people realized the power then of walking, in many ways. So I do feel like we're in back into the glory days of appreciating it. And I'm really, I'm grateful for that. It's it's timely for you. It is, it's good. It's a good thing. I think it's, I think it's really wonderful that, no pain, no gain has. Slipped a little bit as the only path, if that works for you, great. If you want to look, find another way to improve your health, such that our health span and our lifespan are on the same plane. I think that walking is incredibly powerful,

Aimee 30:14

beautiful. If you could offer a very concise piece of advice. For my listeners who want to begin, but they're in that place that you were 27 years ago where they feel overworked, underslept, stressed out. And they don't know how they can fit something like this in, what would you tell them?

Carolyn 30:40

I know it sounds ridiculous, but can you give yourself five minutes a day? Can you intentionally move your body in whatever way? It doesn't have to be walking dance, stretch for five minutes a day and just. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make that a goal and appreciate yourself when you can do it and be kind to yourself when it doesn't work out. But I think that is the smallest step that you can take is going to be by far the most powerful. I love it. I love

Aimee 31:13

it. Is there a question that I haven't asked you in our time together that you wish I had asked?

Carolyn 31:22

Oh, that's such a great question. We were talking a little bit about productivity and getting our work done and so on. And just one of the lovely things about walking in particular, since we're celebrating it today Is that we can multitask. So like walking can be used to check off other boxes and not, simply walking we can connect with people. In fact, walking with people is lovely, but walking in a place where you're, Like coming kind of face to face with others as you pass those micro moments of connection have been shown to increase our health and being our mental outlook significantly if you can catch somebody's I maybe smile just a little bit. That has huge power. So using walking just to encounter people. Looking for something to be. In awe of has been shown to be another really powerful feeling you know that we see ourselves as part of something bigger and we appreciate the world around us and I live in a city right now and I'm like walking under oftentimes an underpass of a highway. And I still can find things to be in awe of, even though the setting itself isn't what you'd consider to be beautiful. I think that, so I feel like there's so many ways to use walking. It could be done in a multitude of ways, like really has been shown to foster our creativity. So you're probably carrying your phone. What if you just said, I'm going to take one picture on every walk, it's just like fun to express yourself in that way and to remember and to see. Start you start to see more things because you're looking for that opportunity. So there are just so many ways to use walking, and it's not that easy to multitask in this world and be able to do two things at once. And of course, we have to be careful and mindful of our surroundings. But walking is one of those just sort of incredible opportunities to pair something else along with it. I love

Aimee 33:13

that. Yeah. During the pandemic, when I was. Out walking to prevent going stir crazy and starting to run again. It was really nice to see the changes in the neighborhood. And I do love that national walking days is happening in the springtime because that is really when you can step outside. And if you live in a neighborhood that is, that has yards or that has gardens, you can watch sometimes day by day, the changes in the landscape. And you're more likely to meet your neighbors because they're out puttering in the garden and it's it's a really wonderful time to be outside. I agree with you. I agree with you. And when you stay at it you see your neighborhood in all of the seasons. And then you start to notice. Oh, that bird lives in that tree. Oh, that squirrel is always chattering at me when I walk by. Oh, and your animal neighbor. I

Carolyn 34:12

know it's so it is. And even the light, like the light will be so different from day to day. It's I walked, the same loop many times. hundreds of times because of where I used to live. And, but if you really noticed, like things were different every single time.

Aimee 34:30

It's a wonderful exercise in mindfulness if you let it.

Carolyn 34:34

Yes. And you can absolutely use walking to build that also, build the skill of being present. It's really one of the best place to ways to pay attention to your senses and what's going on around you right then and there being in the moment.

Aimee 34:53

Carolyn, I know how to find you when I want to listen to you. Why don't you tell our listeners where they can find you if they want to hear more from you? Oh, that's such a,

Carolyn 35:03

so generous. Thank you. So the show is called wellness while walking and it can be found, I think everywhere where you would possibly get your podcasts from but also at Wellness while walking. com. And I would be honored. Please let me know if you listen and if you came from the blasphemous nutrition podcast, I'd love to connect with you.

Aimee 35:23

Awesome. Thank you so much for spending some time with me to celebrate walking today.

Carolyn 35:28

Been so fun. Thank you so much for having me.

Aimee 35:30

My pleasure.

35:33

Any and all information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not to be misconstrued as offering medical advice. Listening to this podcast does not constitute a provider client relationship. Note, I'm not a doctor nor a nurse, and it is imperative that you utilize your brain and your medical team to make the best decisions for your own health. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked to this podcast are at the user's own risk. No information nor resources provided are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Be a smart human and do not disregard or postpone obtaining medical advice for any medical condition you may have. Seek the assistance of your healthcare team for any such conditions and always do so before making any changes to your medical, nutrition, or health plan. If you have found some Nuggets of Wisdom, make sure to subscribe, rate, and share Blasphemous Nutrition with those you care about. As you navigate the labyrinth of health advice out there, remember, health is a journey, not a dietary dictatorship. Stay skeptical, stay daring, and challenge the norms that no longer serve you. If you've got burning questions or want to share your own flavor of rebellion, slide into my DMs. Your stories fuel me, and I love hearing them. Thanks again for tuning in to Blasphemous Nutrition. Until next time, this is Aimee signing off, reminding you that truth is nuanced, and any dish can be made better with a little bit of sass.