How To Be Equally Yoked With Your Spouse on Your Fitness Journeys
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It's a blessing to have a husband who prioritizes his health with the same gusto that I do because it allows each of us to spur each other on in other areas of our lives. Unfortunately, I've come to realize that isn't the norm in all households, so in this episode, Casey and I are going to share what has helped US stay equally yoked on our individual journeys!
It's always good to be on the same page, so get ready to learn the 4 KEY things that help us stay equally "yoked!"
Throughout various seasons of our marriage, we’ve found four main things that have helped keep us on the same page when it comes to our fitness and nutrition. Here they are!
Our foundations were built EARLY
This ideally happens before marriage BUT if they're not, you can rebuild the foundations of healthy living at ANY TIME!
keep changes sustainable
Constant communication
of goals
of schedule
of nutritional needs
of what's hard in our journeys
of what's going well in our journeys
Be okay with being on different journeys
we have very different goals and very different approaches to exercise
it all comes back to communication, especially in this area
Allow room for each other to pivot
when circumstances or schedule or goals or interest necessitate you pivoting in your journey, communicate it and allow each other to make desired changes!
Are you ready to go from overwhelmed and stuck to disciplined and consistent in your journey?
Book your Starting Point Session and let's get you on track to your healthiest life!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] I'm having Casey back on today because his episode a few months ago was pretty popular. We think it was a few months ago. Our math might not be right, but nevertheless, I'm very blessed to have a husband who's sitting right beside me right now who prioritizes his health with the same Gusto that I prioritize my own.
And it allows us to spray each other on, in that area of our. Basically every single day. And I've come to realize over the past few months of working with a lot of different types of moms and different circumstances, that it's not the norm in all household, which I kind of already knew. To actually hear from it.
You know, it can be kind of difficult to not be on the same page all the time. So what we're gonna do today is share the things, the big overarching, just like concepts and practices that have helped us stay equally yoed on our individual journeys. Casey came up with that one because in his mind, . Yolked is like strong, jacked.
Right? Am I getting that definition, right? Yeah. It's one of the many names for being strong. Hence the punt. [00:01:00] So I hope you can laugh at that punt today. It is Casey's humor a hundred percent and I was like, you know what? We'll go with it. So how to be equally yolked in your journeys? It's always good to be on the same page.
We can't wait to hear how this helps you today.
Hey, mama. Welcome to the tough love mom podcast. I know you're here because you're ready to get consistent and finally lose that weight. And you're not afraid of a little tough love, you know, what to do to lose weight. But following through on those things feels impossible. You wish you could just feel like you're strong, competent self again, and want to be good example for your little ones, but you get thrown off by mom guilt and the unpredictability of motherhood.
Frustrating taking on your journey. Postpartum is hard, but it's not impossible. Hey, I'm Liz and I've been where you are. I gained a lot of weight in my pregnancies, 90 pounds, and then 60 pounds. I needed to lose that weight to take control of my health. And honestly just wanted to feel like myself again with [00:02:00] a sustainable approach to weight loss, simple consistency in working on my mindset.
I lost it all in just over a year. Both. And I'm here to help you do the same. I believe that we have an ingrained ability to figure out what we need to do, make it happen and do it in a way that AWS the world, if you're ready to stop falling off the wagon, create solid routine and healthy habits and finally feel your best inside and out.
I will enjoying D nuggets on your salad. You are in the right place. We're about to transform your journey. My. Get pumped up. It is tough. Love time.
All right. So like I said, I've got Casey here and we've got four. You call 'em like overarching themes, practices, concepts, whatever points that have helped us stay on the same page, equally yolked, AKA, how, what would you AKA that equally? Yolked help me out. Being equally. Yolked goes back to biblical times when.[00:03:00]
Trying to plow a field using ox. If you have two S that are hooked up and they're of unequal strength, or if they're trying to go in separate directions, then you're unable to plow in a straight line. So at least that's, my understanding is being equally, yoed is going the same direction and being of equal strength in the direction that you want to go to.
Yeah. So basically we're just saying, okay, this is how on both of our journey. We feel we're equally yoed in, what's helped us get to that point. So the first thing is that our foundations for prioritizing our health, the way we do were built really early in our life and in our relationship, at least for me, I was a free sport athlete growing up in high school and then taking that and staying active in college and really getting into, uh, weight training and finding the value and the health benefits.
So I think that led into us being strong individually in physical fitness. Yeah. I was an athlete when we first met, but then our first couple years dating first, like year and a half [00:04:00] dating, I transitioned from being an athlete to post athlete life and still kept prioritizing that. I think partially cuz you already were outside of playing sports anymore.
And so it was kind of an encouragement of like, Hey, you can keep prioritizing this. You can keep staying active even though you're not playing a sport anymore. As I think back about it now I'm sitting here going that probably helped the fact that we were in a relationship. I could see an example of you don't have to play a sport to be active still.
You know, you can do that after the fact. I mean, it just carried right over. Yeah. And I think physical fitness for me specifically lifting weights in the gym. It was basically my sport throughout yeah. College. Yeah. And some boxing and. Now you still play sports, which we we'll, we'll talk about that in a few minutes, but yeah, we had those foundations built early, just that, Hey, this is what we prioritized and just who we are.
It was like, I don't wanna call it our actual identity, cuz we both became Christians as well, but it was definitely part of our core [00:05:00] priorities. Yeah. But that's part of why I think we were both attracted to each other initially. Definitely. Was because I saw you, you were D one athlete that comes with a lot of glamor and stuff like that.
But I think it's just the, the fact that that displays that you are, you're serious about taking care of yourself and being disciplined. Yeah. Discipline. There's that fancy word now, ideally, these are the kinds of foundations that are laid before marriage. These are the kinds of things that you're like, oh, we have this in common.
We. These foundational pieces of our life, these foundational priorities in line. But if you're not there, if that's not something that was present before marriage, in my opinion, and I know in Casey's too, these can be rebuilt or reinforced at any time in your life. This is not something where it's like, oh, we weren't on the same page in that way.
When we were dating and before we got married and now we're like seven years in, I truly believe that if you keep changes, [00:06:00] sustainable and stay consistent, these simple concepts that people find so hard to actually do over time. But if you do that, if you keep changes, sustainable and simple, and you just stay consistent at it, you can rebuild those foundations as a couple as an individual at any point in your life, whether or not it was there.
Yeah. Yeah. I think it starts by simply identifying the fact that this will be a refocused point in your lives and realizing why you wanna do that and making sure that your partner is on board and tracking why you're refocusing your health, your physical fitness. And it could be that you're having kids and you want to still be around for when they grow old or it could be that you want to, uh, be strong, just be a more useful human being.
But I think just identifying that goal, that end state and that vision that you have and sharing that with your partner and making sure that you're on the same page so that you're not pulling in opposite directions. Yeah. Yeah. Cause then you're unequally. [00:07:00] And it's not like you wanna keep, keep holding yourself back from changing, but you do have to leads us in perfectly to our second point, but you do have to keep communicating.
And that's the second thing that we've found is instrumental in just being on the same page together is that constant communication, it's clear communication and constant communication of what you're aiming towards your goals of what your schedule is of what your needs are nutritionally of. What's going really well in your journey.
What's not going well. That takes so much time to develop, but it's really instrumental to just constantly be communicating. So do you wanna, should we break down those different things? I talked about constant communication of goals. First off, kind of like I was alluding to before you as a couple and each individual individually needs to have a specific vision of where they want to be and what they want their life to look like.
Who do you wanna be as a. As a human being, that's actually something that, that's the first thing we do on starting point sessions. And it's one of the most important things you do [00:08:00] in any type of goal setting or any project planning or anything like that is okay, what do I want this to look like? Where do I want to go?
What tangibly does it feel like? What, what am I doing day to day? You need to actually know what that looks like in your life. Because when you do that, then you can go ahead and explain to your husband, tell your husband, let him in on that vision of, Hey, this is what I wanna work towards. This is what my goals.
And what it actually looks like. It's not just, Hey, I need to lose 10 more pounds. You're painting the picture of when you can see what that vision is around your goals, and actually understand the deeper reasons why you wanna lose a few more pounds or get stronger in this one area or restore your core, whatever it is, then you can communicate to your husband, not just what it is, but why you're wanting to do it from a husband's perspective, why that's important that you communicate your goals to us.
Is then we can better position ourselves to help out facilitate those goals. So if your goal is to work out once a day, we can better help out by watching the [00:09:00] kids or something during that time. And then once it's our turn to work out, then that can be reciprocated. Yeah. And that goes right into constant communication of your schedule.
So it's almost like all these, I. At least between goals and schedule, because you have to work together as a team to make the literal logistics of your homework out. And if working out is a piece of your day to day, that has to be communicated. So that scheduled piece is important too. I think one thing good that we do is every Sunday we go over the events that are gonna happen yeah.
That week. So Liz knows that Mondays and Thursdays, I have jujitsu. And then during rugby season, that's gonna be Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Don't worry though. He's not gone that much. at least for. Yeah. So early in the week, you're both on the same sheet of music. Then each partner can better budget that time and they know what to expect and what their role is in supporting you.
Yeah. And like, even in the midst of, I'm [00:10:00] doing phase three of 75 hard, so I've been doing 2 45 minute workouts a day, depending on the time of year, the calendar I've been doing that literally the past. And with us it's Hey, just FYI. I'm gonna get up in the morning and go for my walk or go for my run or do this workout.
So if the kids wake up, just know it's your turn. And you know, that's just the season that right now, we're in as I do phase three, but at the same time, it's usually on a weekly basis. We're talking about big picture. What's our schedule look like when might I need help with the kids so I can work out.
And, and we do that day to day too, cuz it changes like one afternoon I might say, Hey, can you watch the kids so I can work out when you get home, will you be home early? Because his schedule's always different. So it's again, constant communication and, and this is something we're not perfect at, by any means.
We're just giving an example of what is important in our journeys. We also, uh, pretty consistently communicate our nutritional needs now. At the point we're at, in being married for seven years, being on our journeys individually, and as a couple for [00:11:00] even longer is communicating our nutritional needs. And this isn't really that in depth anymore because we, I do the grocery shopping and I know what Casey needs and I know what I need, but we do talk about, Hey, what do you need from the store this week?
Do you need anything extra? And when there's pivot. Especially, like when you get back from a deployment, I would have to make a big pivot in what our shopping looked like, because I'd factor you in again. So any other thoughts on talking about our nutritional needs and what that looks like what's in your fridge is obviously very important.
So whoever does the grocery shopping it's important for the partner that isn't primary on doing grocery shopping that they're aware of the nutritional needs. Like for example, I eat a lot more meat meat. We all eat a lot of vegetables and fruits. He prefers apples. I prefer bananas. So when he's home, I have to buy more apples.
cuz all the boys in our house love apples. It's just little stuff like that. And then the last thing is constantly communicating. What's going well in our journeys. And what's hard because it's just important to know [00:12:00] what's going on in each other's lives, not just at work, not just in parenting, not just under the same roof, but also in your health.
Because if you're struggling with something, the best person to support you is going to be your husband and vice versa. If your partner knows what you're struggling with, then they can better position themselves to not aid in what you're struggling with. So if you're struggling with junk foods or something like that, then they can know not to bring home that stuff.
Or if you're not struggling with junk foods and they wanna bring home something, then they can maybe do that. Yeah. And remember, we're talking to the mom, so it's something where you're listening and you're probably the one that does most of the grocery shopping. and maybe you struggle with that. , I've talked to so many moms in their starting point sessions that struggle with that afternoon, like hangry snack time.
It's the first time when your kids are down for naps that you get to turn your brain off. So you almost just automatically go to the pantry because you're like, okay, I can finally relax. Now. I'm gonna head there and I'm not even gonna think I'm just gonna start eating cuz I haven't eaten for eight [00:13:00] hours anyways.
It's kinda like this waterfall spiral. You're not the only one that does it, but if you're the one who does the grocery shopping, tell your husband, you're struggling with that and that you don't want to buy all the chocolate and snacks this week or tell your husband, Hey, can you put these somewhere where I'm not gonna know where they are?
So I don't just reach for them, like be vulnerable with your husband about what's difficult, especially if it's nutrition, so he can actually help you and like shoot straight with you. And. Be totally unaware of what you're having a hard time with, cuz truly they can't read our minds. Unfortunately, sometimes I think you can read mine, but I forget that you can.
Yeah. So we talked about being equally yolked, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to be doing the exact same thing or have the exact same goals. Mm-hmm uh, for example, we're okay with being on different fitness journeys, we work out very differently. Yeah. I train for strength and power and athletic performance.
Yeah. Uh, and then you trained for [00:14:00] just overall health, general health and mobility, and. Yeah, nothing crazy. Yeah. So it's okay to have those different goals or if you have the same goals, then that's fine too, but you don't need to expect your partner to be on the exact same training regimen. Yeah. Or be like the, uh, let's say it or be like the couples at the gym with the matching outfits, doing the synchronized pushup.
Lapping pushups. Yeah. Doing the, the synchronized pushup workout. Not to say that's a bad thing. And if you do that more power to you, cause those are hard yeah, but that's just not our cup of tea. It's not ours. If you look at us, if you know us, we're both very active. We both work out very consistently. We both eat very well yet.
We literally are. Not those people. But I do think we're at very much at peace with that and able to stay consistent because going back to when we did first meet and when we were dating, even [00:15:00] then our approaches were super different. Like I was an athlete at first and you were in the gym. I mean, you've pretty much consistently trained, very similarly crossed the years.
And I've definitely changed it up a lot. From being an athlete, then doing a lot of strength stuff, then getting into endurance. And then pivoting back to now I work out at home because logistically it just makes way more sense with kids to be working out at home than trying to get 'em to a gym. But we've literally never trained the same way.
The only time we've done workouts together, I'm pretty sure is the Murf. And that one time you did a triathlon with me. . Yeah, that was fun. yeah. That's also to say that as an individual, you can have different goals as priorities shift as well. And I think that keeps interesting. So if you want to train endurance for a year and then once you do your iron man or your triathlon or whatever, or your 5k, whatever it is.
Yeah. Then you can transition to strength if you want to. [00:16:00] Enter a power lifting competition, or if you just want to be a strong human being. Yeah. Or if you have a specific goal with the amount of weight you wanna put up. So again, it can pivot and transition over time, but it all comes back to communication and just saying.
Where you're at what page you're on, what you envision for, whether it's the next few months, maybe you just had a baby. And so you're wanting to feel like yourself again and gain back a lot of that strength that you lost at the end of pregnancy, whatever it is, you just wanna be constantly communicating what you're working towards.
And I think maybe what can kind of throw people off as sometimes you don't even know what that is, cuz you don't take the time to think about it. I'm at least thinking from a mom's perspective right now, because our life is kind of go, go, go. And so you do need to take time to slow down and say, what do I wanna work towards right now?
How do I wanna feel? What might that look like in my journey? Do I need to, you know, cancel our gym membership for a few months, because now I'm transitioning to two or three kids and I don't know how often I'm gonna get there, but if I feel [00:17:00] financially committed, I'm only gonna work out at the gym. You know, it's just think, take a second to actually think and then communicate what that might look like for the next season of.
I remember you would consistently go to like the outside gym mm-hmm and then you started training and triathlon. So that was a large time commitment. Yeah. And then once we started to have kids, then you transitioned to the in-home fitness style. Yeah. I, I was pregnant. I was still going to a gym, but then once worse came around, I was like, yeah, this is you are gone more often.
I was like, we are gonna be doing this at home. Cuz it just works out. Yeah. So that goes back to that the, the goals can shift when the priorities and the events in your life shift, you can tailor your goals to those outside events. Yeah. So I think we just kind of covered that last point. That fourth point that we were gonna bring up was allowing each other room to pivot in your journey.
And that's basically, we just covered that, but I think example works best for this. So personally, and I, [00:18:00] we already covered this, but for me, I went from. Being an athlete to endurance training, to strength training. And I was still in a gym, but I was pregnant. So, you know, I was still worried about my own schedule.
And then after kids, we got more intentional about building out our home gym. So I could still be super consistent, but with our kids at home and with you, when I'm prepping for rugby season, I know that I usually have to gain a little bit more weight to have a little bit more mass. In the scrum. And so it's important though.
I remember talking with you about it and how I wanted to put on additional 10 pounds so that when I'm eating a lot more yeah. That you're tracking why, and that was a constant communication of nutritional needs. He was like, Hey, buy some more meat, buy some more potatoes. You're gonna be buying a little bit extra food, cuz I need to put some weight on.
Yeah. And then transitioning out of rugby season into jujitsu where it's more advantageous to be a little bit thinner and yeah. Focus more on mobility then that stuff can tamper back. Yeah. So [00:19:00] his, even though his training style has been very similar with a focus on strength and power. You've been doing sports like rugby and jujitsu and lacrosse, and those all require different levels of perform.
And body composition. It's so nice for you probably to be able to change your body composition so easily. all the moms are like rolling their eyes right now. I, I think for me it just keeps things interesting. Yeah. And it helps reduce the, the stagnation. I think moms out there can also look at pivoting their goals.
If, if you've been doing the oh yeah. At home. Hit style workout for a while. And if, if you're up to it and you have the time and you wanna transition to go lifting weights and doing more power and more lifting and strength training. Yeah. I think that would be beneficial. Yeah. I mean there's times when I'm like, I think I have ADHD a little bit, but I also think it's because I have a desire to have variety all the time and.
Although I work out from home a majority of the time I've done stuff like the Goggins [00:20:00] four by four by 48 challenge, which required a lot of running training. I've done a lot of just focused on strength based training. I've done bar, I've done a big variety, although I've been working out at home, giving yourself that ability to, I think that's, I don't know.
I've talked with clients about this a lot, but I think that's something we get in this head. Where we get stuck. The purpose of my journey is to lose weight and look strong or toned, whatever that word means when really the purpose of your journey is to physically stay as healthy as possible. And that includes strength.
It includes mobility. It includes agility. It includes the ability to change your body composition as need be as seasons change. It requires the ability to adjust your schedule and your training based on travel or moving or whatever. And that's truly, I think the purpose of your journey is to allow yourself that space to grow as a human being in all aspects.
Not just the way your body looks. Yeah. I'm a big fan of pivoting goals. This gets [00:21:00] boring if you don't. Yeah. Also this might be slightly stoic for the audience listening. He thinks really deep. So get your thinking caps on for me, it's just a reminder of who's in charge of your body. Mm. Like, is your body in charge of you or are you in charge of your body?
So if I'm getting too thick, I need to remind my body. Nope. You can be thin. And if I'm getting too thin and not strong enough, I need to. My body. Nope. You can train and you can be strong. Yeah, absolutely. And we often will allow ourselves to believe, especially as woman lies or past things that we've identified as to come back and become this identity again, whether it's.
Okay. I gained a lot of weight. I mean, literally speaking from experience, I gained a lot of weight in pregnancy. Okay. I'm like six weeks postpartum. I've lost all the water weight and, you know, the, all the extra, whatever from pregnancy that goes away right away. And I still have 50 pounds to lose and I'm sitting here, like I could identify as that overweight version [00:22:00] of Liz.
Who's not comfortable and feels weak. And honestly, if I stayed at that point would be risking my health long term. Um, I could identify as that because. You know, I was at that point for months and it took a while for me to work that off. But if I stayed in that place of comfort of what I knew in that moment, and didn't rely on what I'm capable of knowing what's in char, who's in charge of my body, knowing what thoughts are dictating my choices and Hey, okay.
Yeah. I'm feeling stressed right now. So that's probably why I just wanna eat all the chocolate in the house or I'm at this point in my cycle, I'm doing a lot more cycle sinking. So just being aware of where I'm at in my cycle. So I. Okay. Like, I'm actually at the point right now where I kind of wanna eat everything in sight when really that's probably not most beneficial for me.
And I know that and that I can remind myself, Liz you're in control of your choices and yeah, you might be craving this or feeling this way, but that doesn't mean you have to follow through on that. So that's a good point. I don't think that was too deep. Remind yourself who's in control of your body and your journey and your choices you are.
[00:23:00] Okay. So recap of our points, would you like to do the honors? So first is to lay the foundation. Physical fitness. Ideally that's already been laid out early mm-hmm , but if it's not just make sure that you refocus your time and energy and communicate that with your spouse, that that's who you wanna be.
Yeah. You can rebuild those at any time. The second thing is that constant communication is absolutely necessary. It's not an option. If you decide, Hey, I'm gonna make this foundational piece in my life priority again, I'm gonna start being healthy. If you just go ahead and start doing that without talking to your husband about it or communicating that at all, in any of your goals, your schedule nutrition, if you don't communicate any of that, none of the rest of this matters.
It won't become something that you'll ever be on the same page of if you don't talk about it with your husband. Third point third is to be okay with being on different journeys. So just because you train differently, doesn't [00:24:00] mean that you're unequally yolked so long as you both have. Direction that you're going to, of being, uh, the best version of yourself, if that is aligned, then that is being equally yolked.
That does not have to look the same. However, yeah. The husband can train, train strengths while the wife trains running in running or endurance or vice versa. Yeah. And a little side note that we didn't really get to mention that just came to mind is being okay with being on different journey. But then being equally yoked also doesn't mean that you're working out the exact same amount of time on a weekly basis.
It's not like, okay, Casey gets four hours to work out and I get four hours to work out. I don't think we've ever done that type of calculation. Yeah. Because that's just, it depends on what style of, of workout you're doing. If you're doing a 20 minute hit workout, as opposed to me doing it a two hour.
Lifting session. Yeah. With a bunch of rest time in between cuz you're doing power. Like it is. I mean, I don't even, we've never even done that math. I've never even thought to do that math before. And it [00:25:00] honestly, again, and this is our last point allowing for each other to pivot as both of us have pivoted in our journey.
And this is even month to month sometimes. The amount of time we work out individually is different. It varies. And it's all based on where we're at, what we're focused on with our goals and how we're communicating that to each other. And we never, I mean, we've also got two kids, so it's not like we're just only thinking about us and our journeys all the time.
We're constantly. Okay. How does this work into our family life? When Casey was doing rugby and jujitsu, he was gone two to three nights a week. And so it was okay. I'm not gonna go to all the practices cuz then I'm never gonna be home for bedtime. How are we gonna still make this a priority and enjoyable for you, but also make it doable for our family?
Yeah. And also communicating the why you want to do that. So big. So for me, why I trained jujitsu is if I was in a situation where I needed to defend my family, I did not want to be at a disadvantage. I'd rather be an advantageous position. And I've communicated that with Liz and that gives her. The [00:26:00] view behind my eyes so she can understand why I want to go do that two times a week.
Yeah. It's not like, uh, he's going, he's gonna miss bath time and bed time up to do it all by myself. Yeah. I, I probably do have nights where that's my mindset cuz I'm human, but I also know big picture. The reason he's doing that is. In the grand scheme of things, he's our protector, he's our provider. And that's what he's training to do in that sense.
And I understand that for him, it's a good outlet. He understands like when I was doing the four by four, by 48, he knew that I wanted to do this. Cause I love a good mental challenge. I love that it spurs you on when you're listening and seeing, oh my gosh, this is doing something that's running 48 miles and 48 hours.
Okay. If she can do that, I can go train for a 5k. Like he knows the purpose of why I do what I. And man, we could have made this all one point. It's just communicating. It really is. That's how you're on the same page and anything, but especially your journey. Well, thanks for being here today. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, absolutely. Before you go, thank [00:27:00] you for spending this time with me on the tough love mom podcast. If this episode encouraged you in any way, the number one way you can thank me is to leave a review, letting me know how the show has impacted you. Then. Send this episode to another mom friend, or take a screenshot, post it on social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me on this journey to impact thousands of moms.
I'm so grateful to be on this journey with your sister until next time. Get after it.
