Wellness with Vanda
A women's health podcast where we'll be talking about hormones, mindset, motherhood, & everything in between. The host, Vanda, is a functional medicine nurse coach that helps women overcome hormone imbalance so that they can achieve optimal wellness. In her private practice she specializes in HTMA testing and DUTCH testing. Throughout this podcast she shares tips for boosting energy naturally, improve mood, recover from mom burnout, ways to increase fertility, ways to improve sleep quality, tips for pregnancy, tips for navigating postpartum and the fourth trimester, and more!
Wellness with Vanda
My Review of 3 Popular Fitness Programs
This week I'm sharing a product review of 3 workout programs I tried out last year.
- Workout Witch 3 course program (affiliate link, code WELLNESSWITHVANDA will save you 10% at checkout)
- Birth Recovery- Ab Rehab
- Better Me Somatic Exercise 28-day challenge
Throughout the episode I'm sharing what I liked about each, how I felt while working through them, what results I saw, and which one I'm thinking about starting again.
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Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I'm going to be doing something today that I don't think I've done yet on the podcast episodes. I'm going to be giving my opinion, like a review sort of, of some products. I picked three for today's episode and they're actually all like workout and somatic exercise programs. So I'm going to kind of talk through like why I decided to do each of them or what like what piqued my interest about each of them, what results I saw, and like if it's something that I would recommend, yes or no. So I am recording this in just a few minutes, like it's going to be a shorter episode, probably because I have a sick kiddo at home with me, so I'm trying to get it done before he were to need me again or he were to go in the room. So the three things that I'm, or the three programs that I'm going to be talking about, is one from the workout which I did her three course bundle. So she it's a somatic exercise program. She has three different courses but you can bundle them together to get them kind of out of discounted rate, and I did the hips course and then she has a neck and jaw and a shoulder. Those are the three different courses. When you purchase them together, she kind of tells you like what order to do them in, and it ends up being that the jaw and the shoulder are kind of combined almost, but I'll talk a little bit more about that. Then the next one that I did was birth recovery, ab rehab. And then the last one is through the better me app, which I guarantee you have seen ads for the better me app on your Instagram and probably your Facebook too, because that's how they got me and I still see their ads like all the time. So I want to talk about the work out which first, because that's the one that I did first I'm doing. I'm going to review these in the order that I have done them, because that just made the most sense in my mind.
Speaker 1:So the work out which came as a recommendation to me through, I think, megan and some ladies with the metabolism makeover and if you've seen any of her posts and things on Instagram, she talks a lot about people having like an emotional release throughout their like journey as they work through these exercises, and that's one of the things that, like, somatic exercise is supposed to help you to do is like feel your feelings and release old feelings and old trauma. And it wasn't necessarily like that aspect that really like drew me in because I have not had, thank goodness, like you know, big T traumas in my life. We all have little T traumas but you know, I haven't had, you know, like super traumatic things happen to me throughout my life so I didn't feel like I really needed it for that reason. But the other advantage to doing this program is it's supposed to help regulate cortisol and sometimes we have stored stressors and stored traumas but like even just the pile up of those little T traumas in our body and so we're still like hanging on to all that stress. And it's supposed to this program is supposed to help you like work through that, release that. And one of the most like common places that this trauma and the stress gets stuck is in your hips and that's kind of you start the program there. And so a new from my htma test that my drenals needed some support and so you know your cortisol that's where your cortisol is made. Cortisol, as a reminder, is your stress hormone.
Speaker 1:So I felt like maybe this could be supportive for me in that aspect and so I dove in and I actually went through the program two times, sort of back to back. I loved the hips portion of the program both times that I've tried to go through it. I just don't love the neck, shoulder and jaw portion. It just doesn't feel as enjoyable to me. It's not that it's anything hard. These workouts and I'm doing air quotes are nothing like a traditional workout. They're very chill. They're much more like a relaxing, calming yoga session but, honestly, even more relaxed than that. I just I don't know. I just didn't like the work that you do during the jaw, neck and shoulder portion.
Speaker 1:As far as results, another big claim that she has is that it really helps people just drop weight. They've held on to weight for a long time and suddenly they go through this program and they're just dropping weight left and right. Well, I do think that that is true for some people, but I don't. I do have some weight that I could lose, but I don't have like the traditional, like cortisol belly that I feel like the women that are seeing that kind of dramatic weight shift as a result of doing her program are seeing I don't, I didn't have that and I don't have like that much weight to lose either. So in terms of like those type of results. I didn't really see anything Now in terms of like emotional releases. Some people say that they have these like crying episodes, these shaking episodes. I didn't have any of the crying. There's some shaking that occurs when you do some of the exercises and the she shares that. That is like supposed to be stored stress and stored traumas leave in the body. So I did have a little bit of that as I worked through some of the hip stuff, but no crying episodes.
Speaker 1:It did make me dream a lot and have really like vivid dreams, and they weren't necessarily like about anything in particular. I would just notice that, like when I was doing the exercises versus when I was not, I dreamed a lot more. I felt like I slept really good while I was going through it too. It seemed like I had like good deep sleep and then I think that it helped me the most. Like when I was doing it, I did it very first thing in the morning. When I got up, it was like I got up, my kids and my husband left for the day. I like got dressed, or sometimes I just did it in my pajamas, but it was the first thing I did after they left. So it was a good way for me to start the day like not scrolling on my phone, not immediately, like getting on the phone to talk to somebody or texting someone or whatever. I just started the day in that kind of calm state and I think that helped me more than anything and helped regulate a quadrizole somewhat. So definitely recommend it for that, for that stress aspect of it. If you just like need something to I don't know, give yourself like five to ten minutes a day. That's another thing that I really liked about the program is that I think the longest of the sessions was like maybe 20 minutes. Most of them are like eight, ten, twelve minutes, like they go very quickly and, like I said, you feel like really calm and chill at the end. So that's on what I had to say on the workout, which Then, as I was kind of wrapping that up, I got really interested in ab rehab and pelvic floor therapy and I knew that I was going to be coming up on wanting to get pregnant again and I don't know how many of you guys like know my birth story with Hollis.
Speaker 1:But I had a natural, unmedicated birth with Hollis and that was not the plan. He just came very, very quickly and there was no time for me to get an epidural and I have felt like my recovery from that has been really, really good. However, I haven't really done pelvic floor therapy at all after him or can like either one. And you know I did have some like more like round ligament pain, but just like a lot of pain in my pelvic region towards the end of my pregnancy with Hollis and I feel like and I don't really have any like professional reason to back this up but I felt like it was because my muscles there were probably kind of weak and I had never rehabbed them after having Kenlee and then here I was having this baby again and now I've had this really quick vaginal delivery. So I just felt like doing some ab rehab to like lead up to, or pelvic floor therapy, rather leading up to my next pregnancy would probably be beneficial for me.
Speaker 1:And then I'm always kind of even like, since I had that delivery with Hollis, I'm always thinking about how I can like best prepare myself for the next delivery, because you know, typically they say your babies come quicker and quicker the more that you have, and I don't really have a plan necessarily going into this next delivery if I'm gonna do natural or I'm gonna get an epidural again and that's kind of always been my take on it, like I try to labor as long as I can before I get the epidural and then this time, you know, I know going into it that I've done it without an epidural before, but if I get to a point that I feel like I need the epidural then I'm gonna get it. But, all that being said, I did no prep work going into Hollis's delivery to be able to deliver naturally. Like I did not really even coach myself or teach myself or like trying to learn from other people like any breathing techniques or positions or like nothing. Nothing at all didn't really prep my body. I did like do some, some exercises and stuff that were supposed to like help open your hips and get the baby in good position and was supposed to help with some of that pelvic pain that I was having. But I think it was kind of too little, too late in the pregnancy because it didn't really help a whole lot, or at least I don't think that it did. Maybe things would have been worse if I hadn't done it, I don't know. But all of that to say. That's kind of the reason that I was seeking out like a pelvic floor therapy type program, and ideally I wanted to do it myself at home, because we don't have a lot of resources here locally for pelvic therapy and I didn't know, like, how my insurance coverage would be for that anyway. So I did some research, I asked for some recommendations and of course you start looking for something and you start getting served ads for it. Specifically, I was on TikTok and I kept getting this ad from Nancy Anderson, who is kind of like the founder and creator of this birth recovery ab rehab program, and I asked a couple people about it that had done it. They had pretty good things to say about it.
Speaker 1:I previewed the app and it looked like it was a similar setup to what I had just been used to with the workout, which the workouts were pretty short, they seemed manageable, they didn't require a lot of equipment. Most things were like body weight or you didn't need a lot of weights, like you do use some dumbbells at some point, but wasn't anything that was super heavy. Otherwise you use like I did need to buy small yoga ball because I only had a big one bands, like things that I already had. So it's like, okay, this seems good, I'm gonna give this a try. So I did that and I did it for the. The overall like whole program is 90 something days and, I'll be honest, I got to about day 50 and then the weather changed and I was outside a lot more and I just do things differently in the summer when it's nice and warm outside and I just kind of like slacked off doing this ab rehab program. But it's something that I still have access to and honestly, I have already and only like I'm not even 20 weeks yet and I'm already kind of experiencing some of that pelvic pain here in there. So I'm probably gonna restart the program because you can do it while you're pregnant. That's one of the things that I liked about it too especially at that time not knowing, like when I was going to get pregnant again was that they have modifications in there for pregnancy all throughout the different trimesters. So I liked that about it and I was really satisfied.
Speaker 1:I again like weight loss wasn't my goal. Anyway, I didn't see a lot of weight loss. I do feel like I saw changes in my stomach, though, and you know that is an indication of like building muscle, because muscle weighs more than fat. Like the body changes the way you look is really what you want to be after anyway. So I do feel like I was really like repairing and building some of my abdominal muscles and, like I said, probably gonna start that back soon because I am having some of that pain. But I did feel like it really helped me to like the things that they teach you along the way as you like slowly go into this program out. Something I've really liked about it was that any you could start this program like somebody that had never worked out before could start this program and they had some really good videos to teach you about, like form in the different areas of your public floor and your abdominal muscles and like what you should be using when for what types of movements and how to contract each one of them, and just some really helpful information. So I also felt like it really helped me even have better form with other exercises that I was doing. So all in all, I think that it is a really good program.
Speaker 1:Their app has a lot, of, a lot of cool things in it. So like I did a year subscription for this program and like there's some stuff that you can pay for upgrades but there's like a lot of information that you just get access to at this like basic tier. So they have like a live coaching calls all throughout the day, all throughout the week on different subjects. So like they'll have some live workouts. They'll have some live sessions from a nutritionist that's teaching. They have a mental health coach that gets on there. They have things that are specific to newborn moms, like if there's there's a lot of support. Honestly, I haven't taken advantage of a lot of that support because I didn't even like that wasn't the reason that I bought the program, but it's there.
Speaker 1:If I, you know, wanted to, wanted to do it, they give you. They have a program built inside here that's called the 30 day slim down. I haven't looked at it in in detail in a long time. Like I look. I remember looking at it when I first got the app and like had joined the program because I didn't know that it was gonna be part of it. I read about it. I'm pretty sure they have you cut out dairy and gluten. They give you a meal plan to eat off of for like I can't remember if it was four weeks or six weeks. I guess it was four weeks because it's a 30 day, it's a 30 day thing. So but they they have like the basic meal plan. They have a different version of the meal plan if you're breastfeeding and they even have some family style like dinner recipes, because you know cooking for once, or a friend that cookin for a family, and then they have like once you get through the ab rehab program like I said, that's like 90 days then they have an ab rehab plus and they have groups that like people have made it all the way through the ab rehab program and then they are needing more advanced workouts so they go through that.
Speaker 1:And one thing I really liked about this program I did, I did this was something I did have. The order equipment was, but I had never been exposed to foam rolling before. Like I had heard about it, kind of knew what it was, but I had never done it and never even really seen anybody do it and I loved it. I think it feels really good. I had some sciatica pain at the end of my pregnancy with Hollis and I think that if I had had like foam rolling, that would have been a really helpful tool to have in my, in my tool belt and to help manage that, because I did like chiropractic care and stuff and that helped. But in like between visits it would get flared up again and I think the foam rolling would have been super helpful and so I'm glad to have that on board this time as well.
Speaker 1:All right, and then lastly, is the Better Me app. Now, I don't really I don't know. I haven't like fully dug into this app to figure out, like all the ins and outs of it, because they have several different kind of like sections to this app or different types of workouts. I signed up originally for a somatic, a 28 day somatic exercise program, and I did that because I just wanted to see a different perspective from what I got with the workout which, because there's you know, there's different trainers, different methodologies, different histories, different like ways that they've been taught to teach somatic exercise, and I just wanted to see what a different program looked like.
Speaker 1:And I will say that with the Better Me program it is much more intuitive, like, whereas with the workout which, she pretty much tells you exactly what you need to do. If she wanted you to move your right arm, like she would tell you exactly how she wanted you to do it, whereas with the Better Me program they and it's video led so like there's a person on there that you can watch, but they kind of like, if they're telling you to move your rare right arm, they kind of more or less tell you to like move it in the way that feels good to you, like it's much more intuitive and much more I don't know in your feels or like trying to get you like more in your body. I can see where it would make some people a little bit uncomfortable or definitely like take some adjusting to get used to, because it's kind of odd. Some of the things are, some of the different ways that they like want you to move your body, but again, you're supposed to be just moving around, like stored emotions and things. So that's the idea.
Speaker 1:Overall, I enjoyed that program. It was 28 days but I didn't I don't know, I didn't really I didn't feel as relaxed doing it as I did the workout, which and I didn't notice myself like feeling less stressed or sleeping better or dreaming more, anything like that. I didn't notice any of those changes really, and part of that could be on me, because when I was doing this one, although it was 28 days. I did have a couple of times in there where, like, I stopped for a day or two because I was sick or one of the kids got sick or whatever, and then I would pick it back up and really, when you're doing a somatic exercise program, you're supposed to do it from start to finish, not stopping, not skipping any days. I did like that. The the workouts still were super short. They were mostly like 12 and 13 minutes. Some of them got to be up to like 15 or 20 minutes I think, but that was rare, so I really liked that about it. Now it didn't have any equipment required at all. That I remember. It was all just body weight, body movement, you know, a yoga mat, if anything that you needed. So that's my review on the three of those. Like I said, I think that I'm going to start, maybe, the ab rehab program back again and see, you know, just kind of go through it again Because it's been almost a year since I went through it the first time and see if I can get it to help with some of this like public pain that I've been having.
Speaker 1:For today's mindset minute, I wanted to talk about something that I don't think I've talked about on the podcast before.
Speaker 1:It's just the idea that we can feel two things at one time, and this has been coming up a lot lately in like all different areas of life personally, with like nutrition and body image, things with clients, with my kids, like friends in their life, and I think that sometimes we forget that like we can kind of feel two things and want two things at the same time, and that it's okay for that to be the case.
Speaker 1:I know that lots of you guys like listening to me and that are in my community have goals for your health and for your body, and there's a lot of I don't know shaming I guess is the word going on right now against women that want to change their body or want to look differently than what they do or way differently than what they do, and I think that that's really unfortunate because you, like I said, you can feel two things at one time. You can want two things at one time. You can be okay with your body and like feel thankful for the things that it has done for you birth and your kids you know, supporting your family, doing all the things that it does, but then you can also wish that it was a little bit different. It's the same thing when you think about, like, stress management I talk a lot about how important cortisol regulation and stress management is and you can you can feel two things about something, like you can be really, really excited about something at the same time that you're also still anxious about it or nervous about it either way, and I think sometimes we just have to kind of like give ourselves permission and just a reminder that that's totally human to have mixed feelings about something, and that we're not robots and we're not black and white. We're not always just going to be like bull on 100% one way about something.
Speaker 1:And you know, just reminding yourself that even if there are people out there that are like you should just accept your body for what it is. You should be so thankful it's helped you bring, you know, your babies into the world and look how much, how incredible that is, and it's maybe breastfed and it's like it's kept two babies alive, and you know you should just be so thankful and you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You shouldn't be so hard on your body, you shouldn't be trying so hard to change it. You should just accept it and love it for what it is. Well, yeah, but also it's okay to be like well, but I would really like to fit more comfortably into my clothes. Again, I would like to feel more confident in my swimsuit in the summer, you know, whatever it might be for you, because everybody's things are different, everybody's wants are different, but it's just, it's okay to feel them both at the same time. So I just wanted to leave you with that for today and I will talk to you guys next week.
