Why don't you tell me a little bit
about why you signed up for Lighten Up?
Okay.
So I have been vegan for a long time.
I say vegan,
not whole food plant based
because I ate crap.
I didn't come by it willingly, per se.
The doctor just,
this is what my kidney specialist wanted me to do
and it worked.
Over the years, I got better with it
but my weight has fluctuated.
I joke and say I've gained and lost the same 50 pounds
multiple times
but I really have.
I've been 119,
I've been 200
and I'm five eight in a medium frame.
So both are bad for my body.
So I have done tons of resets.
I've done the juice reset,
I've done tons of weight loss company resets,
put all this money into stuff
but when you guys came out
and you started talking about it,
I had fallen in love with Clean Food Dirty Girl
like from the moment I saw the welcome video.
I kind of just happened upon you guys
when I was looking for a recipe
when I was sick of eating crap
and I was just like yeah, I know this'll be perfect.
And you had talked about having a movement component
and do you remember,
I know you remember
but you had done a blog
where you were in the airport doing your movement
and you had a ball on the floor
and I said, oh,
I made a mental note,
oh, I want to check out the movement practice.
But like many mental notes, I forgot my mental note
and I thought, oh, this is my chance.
So that is why,
I was just really feeling sluggish.
I had a lot of things that I couldn't control in my life.
And this was something that was just for me.
And I talked to my husband,
I'm like, eh, I don't know if I should spend the money.
And he said, baby, spend it,
you'll feel better,
do what you want,
you got this.
-: So yay.
So here you are.
-: Mmhmm.
Yeah and that's the long answer
but yes, here I am.
-: Yeah, so you just felt
like you needed to do something for you
and to focus really on you
and kind of give yourself this gift.
-: Yeah
and I knew that it had to be something different.
I didn't want,
many times, I've done these 30 days
and then day 31, I'm back to crap
and I knew that somehow intuitively
this process would be different
and I could go back to my way of life
as opposed to something to do for 30 days
and lose a bunch of weight and come back.
So it really wasn't for weight loss.
I mean my weight, I lost 15 pounds now.
I think I would be at like day 45,
I don't even know,
I don't keep track anymore,
but it was more about just feeling better.
And I do.
I feel much better.
-: Yay, yeah, so let's talk about it.
And that's perfect.
We really, really,
as you know,
we really designed this program
so that it's not like oh, after day 30 it's over
and I go back to my old life.
It's like we're setting the stage
for you to really live your life from here forward
and just have this be your life
'cause you can and why not?
That's what it's about.
So let me know,
so when you were going through this,
tell me some of the things
that you went through
both challenging and amazing during this process.
-: So I don't know that I had too much challenging
to be honest.
I think probably the biggest challenge
was having to change the mindset
that I don't have to eat three meals
and two snacks a day.
I think for so many years
that was ingrained.
I also,
I thought snacking after dinner would be difficult
'cause I always had a snack after dinner
but that didn't really bother me.
I had tea twice
and I never really thought about it,
it didn't really bother me.
But it was the meals,
knowing that I didn't have to get up and eat breakfast.
I was bulimic,
well, I shouldn't say was,
I say recovering bulimic since I was 15,
I'm 50 now.
But food has always been something for me to control
and I thought, oh my goodness,
here I am, I'm not getting up
and eating breakfast right away,
this is gonna be hard.
And I guess it was challenging
to find a plan like okay, if I'm hungry at 10,
where am I gonna be at 10?
Because my day, I'm a therapist in the schools
but a different kind of OTT.
I work with kids who have had severe trauma.
So I can't plan my day.
If somebody's having a problem, that's where I go.
It's a really cool job
but it's a really stressful job at times
or I'm giving lots of trainings to teachers.
So that I was worried about.
I was so afraid of being hungry
and I thought, well this is stupid.
You grew up without money
but you were never hungry.
Why were you afraid of being hungry?
And I think in one of your blogs you said,
you're not gonna die, if you're hungry,
you're gonna get food
and I thought oh yeah, this is silly.
So I just brought food with me
and trying to listen to my body,
I guess would probably be the biggest challenge
but it's the biggest gift
because now I don't worry about it.
I've always taken food with me places.
But now I don't plan a huge bag of food.
I used to bring this huge ridiculous bag every day,
whether I ate it or not
'cause I was so afraid I would be somewhere and not get food
and now I know I don't really have to do that anymore.
So it's pretty cool.
-: Yeah.
There's a lot of freedom in that.
-: There is.
It's just my husband said,
he said, your whole demeanor is different.
Like we went to a grad party
and there wasn't anything I could eat
and instead of us stopping at a local fast food place
that has beans that I can eat
that I know is gonna make me feel like crap,
I'm like, eh, I can wait the hour till I get home
and I used to worry about eating too late at night
and now I'm like,
ah, if my dinner's at seven,
it's not my best
but it's at seven,
I'm just gonna eat it then.
So that has been the biggest gift.
And probably the biggest challenge
and then the biggest aha.
I think I got the most out of that.
I'm finally realizing when I'm hungry.
For years I just watched when people stopped eating
and I stopped.
Now I know when I need to stop.
So-- 
-: Oh, that's juicy there.
That's really juicy.
I mean isn't that interesting
that the most challenging part of this
was also the biggest lesson for you.
I love that because I see that all the time
and isn't that the truth in life.
And a side note,
I'll hear somebody say,
well okay,
well I'm not sure if I want to do a daily practice,
what should I focus on?
I'm like focus,
for the movement bit,
focus on the ones that you don't want to do.
-: Exactly.
-: 'Cause it's the same.
It's like when you focus on the stuff that's hard,
man, that's when you get so much benefit from it.
So that is awesome.
And to really get in tune with your hunger
and to get in tune with your body,
how cool is that?
How, it has,
I mean we've been already kind of talking about that
but since, from the beginning, from day one
to day 40, whatever day this is,
how else has your life kind of morphed because of this?
And talk a little bit too about the movement practice.
-: Okay.
So as far as internal attitude,
I'm much calmer.
We had,
the end of the school year is rough for me.
I've never been really a big alcohol drinker
except for my young teenage years
but I did realize that when things got tough,
I would numb myself.
I mean one,
half a drink really numbs me
I have a low tolerance, thank goodness,
but something happened at work
and it was like a really severe case
and my heart was broken
and I went to the store to get something
and I saw the Mike's Hard Lemonade
and I thought, oh that would be good
and I paused
and I thought, you know,
you are taking care of yourself,
this isn't gonna help you
but mostly you're not gonna be there for that child.
You don't get to numb yourself to his pain.
You can't help him if you're numb.
Too many other people have checked out on him,
you can't do that.
So I don't think I would've done that a month ago
or two months ago.
There were times,
I would have like maybe a drink every three months,
every two months,
but when something bad happened,
I went to that.
We also had a family member had brain surgery
and has a brain mass
and so we were at the hospital long days
and I had the energy and the ability
to take care of other people
because I had my energy, I brought my balls.
I did not lay on the floor
like you did at the airport.
I didn't want to lay on the hospital floor.
But I had my balls,
I did my ha's,
I went and just took care of myself.
My husband was rolling on the ball.
And that helped.
The movement I think,
well personally,
like attitude-wise I feel much better,
I'm calmer.
I've been a much anxious person.
I had like seven ulcers at one point in my life.
But movement wise,
last year I broke my back
and I went from running marathons
and extreme working out
to try to lose weight
to not being able to move
for about a year
and I'm not kidding you, Molly,
Michelle, you are a God,
because I could not,
I've had back pain every day since my back surgery,
every day.
I don't take,
I can't take medicine
but I buy those heating pads that you stick on your back,
like I think I need a bulk to buy
and I haven't worn one in a month.
Getting on the noodle ball was hard for me,
it made me dizzy,
I'd get light headed,
but now I love it
and I have no back pain.
I walk three miles a day every single morning,
I started working out again,
not extreme 'cause I don't feel like I have to anymore.
I spend two hours a day in my garden now
bent over on all fours
and I come in and I do my practice
and I'm great.
I have no pain.
It's amazing.
With the exception of last night being excited,
I've been sleeping through the night
which I always took something to help me sleep.
I fell asleep at like 9:30, 10 o'clock
and by 5:30, six o'clock I'm awake on my own.
It's crazy.
I love it.
I'm like whoa.
Sometimes I'm irritated,
like really, couldn't you just sleep?
It's Saturday.
But nope.
-: Welcome to my life.
I'm like even on a Sunday,
it doesn't matter.
Five o'clock, I'm up.
So you get it now.
That is so cool.
That's so like,
so many things in just a month, first of all.
And also, I think,
was part of this like,
let's go back to the mindset thing for a minute
and how much calmer you are
and more patient and not maybe reacting
and instead taking a pause to kind of check in.
Was that something that you expected to have happen
during this program?
-: No.
And you know what, honestly,
years of therapy,
and I don't know if I would've got here
without therapy too.
So I'm not dissing therapy.
But years of therapy, I couldn't get there.
I couldn't get there with the bulimia,
it always came back.
But then, I told you guys before,
like before Lighten Up,
you had made a comment like,
if you want to eat it, you can eat it,
you have control of that.
And I thought,
oh my goodness, I have control of that,
it's not controlling me.
And then I used, that was in my head,
but then with Lighten Up,
I think the body discovery,
it's such a nice way of going through therapy
'cause when you're one-on-one with a therapist,
or at least me,
maybe other people aren't like this,
I was always wondering
what she was gonna think about what I said.
If I talked about something with my mom
or something with my kids
and she would pick up on that and start to talk about it,
I felt like I had to defend them.
I couldn't really be honest
or I would think,
does she know I'm not telling her everything?
I couldn't put it all out there
but with the body discovery,
it's just you.
You have to put it out there, right?
And I wrote it down
and I cried with some of it
and I don't know if I should call it body discovery,
root discovery, whatever,
but that's a huge plus.
Not gonna fib,
when I first laid down
and Michelle was talking about ancestry,
I was a little irritated
because my stepdad had passed away
and that's who I think of my dad
and I was like I don't want to think about my dad.
And I thought, well this is like really stupid,
you're not gonna get anywhere if you don't.
You still remember sitting on a porch
waiting for him to come get you
and he never showed up.
You still remember he lived around the block from you
for a year and you didn't know it.
Come on.
So at first, I was irritated I had to do it
but I'm like nope, trust the process,
you always tell everybody else, trust Team Dirty,
just trust.
So there, so I did.
So it made a huge difference.
It was like therapy.
It was like free therapy really.
-: That's the thing
and now you get it
and that's totally,
that's why I wanted to put together this program
'cause I'm like,
I want everybody to experience what I have experienced
with this movement stuff.
And then you combine the food
and it's such a natural fit.
But isn't it incredible
just the shit that comes up
and you're able to like,
I don't know,
I've had stuff come up
that I didn't even know needed to come up
and then I was able to let it go
because then it's like okay,
well you don't have to dwell on that,
you can let it go too.
So it's like, yeah,
everything that you are saying,
I'm like yep, yep, I can relate.
-: And then you're on the ball,
I was doing something,
I don't remember, I was doing my right butt cheek
and something happened,
I don't remember what,
I don't remember what happened
but all of a sudden
a thought of my childhood popped in my head
and immediately that ball hurt
and I was like oh my God,
it is connected to the muscle,
I'm like haaa this one out
because this one hurts.
But yeah, I mean it's amazing.
I just feel better.
I've spoken with family members
and I'm like,
I haven't told them, they don't need my forgiveness
but when I've spoken with them,
people I haven't spoken to in a long time,
not out of anger
but just because there's no opportunity,
I was like, no it's okay,
in my heart I told myself, I forgive,
it doesn't matter anymore.
They are who they are,
you are who you are,
it's all good,
you got this.
So I feel much better.
-: That's such a blessing, it really is
and I think that people can reach where you're at
in a multitude of ways.
There's a lot of ways to do this.
But I think when you do the movement
and do the food
and you do this for yourself,
you just set yourself up
for the perfect storm
of being able to release shit
that just is not serving you anymore.
-: Oh no, I agree, totally agree
and my friends know.
So my mom actually has always told me
put your shoulders back.
I got tall early
and my first boyfriend was really short.
So I used to always think, you bend down,
I was too tall for him,
and so I spent a lot of years like this
and she's like, wow,
just this last weekend,
she's like, your posture is really good.
I'm like oh, thank you.
-: Feels good to stand tall, doesn't it?
-: It does.
-: I know, it's so funny
'cause like I never,
I never was like actually working on my posture.
That wasn't anything that I was ever actively doing.
But after a couple of months of doing this practice,
I'm like holy shit,
my posture is so much better.
So it's like all these little things that happen
that you're not even trying to do,
it just happens as this little side effect.
So it's like amazing, amazing.
And I know,
the thing is like,
it's really hard to explain what Michelle's work is.
I've had a hard time from the beginning
from when I started to do it
and I would explain it to friends,
I'm like just come with me,
you just have to experience it
because it is like movement therapy.
That's as close as I can get
and it's also,
you're gonna get more flexible and less tight
but it's so hard to explain.
So I'm really like when you said
you just trusted us.
And I think that's really what it takes
because this is a brand new practice
for almost everybody
because for Michelle, it's like,
she's the only one really doing it
like the way that she's doing it.
So talk a little bit about that.
So you were hesitant a little bit in the beginning
when the ancestor things came up
and you were like, huh, what am I doing?
So when you decided to just trust us
and go with it,
can you talk a little bit about that?
Because I know that there's some people
who have a really hard time with that.
-: Mmhmm.
Okay so at first I was,
I felt more tense, right.
So just laying on the noodle ball hurt so bad.
But just laying on my back with my head down,
I was extremely dizzy.
I have a really bad vestibular system.
So any time my head is tipped, I'm nauseous and dizzy
so I almost went,
'cause I was like,
oh I cannot be nauseous anymore.
I mean I'm not kidding you,
I get car sick when I drive,
it's awful.
And I don't,
that's funny 'cause that's gotten better too
now that I'm thinking about it.
I didn't realize that.
But I started thinking about,
I thought, well just go with it.
Molly's been doing this for a long time.
I don't feel like the program
is designed to sell you something.
I feel like,
obviously it's a living right,
it's a business,
but the whole purpose,
I've always felt like the purpose
was to help other people
and to share knowledge.
So I thought knowing that that's the premise
you just have to trust it.
And it was funny,
it was like day three I think of doing it
'cause I was dreading it.
Day one, uh uh, didn't like it.
Day two, dreaded it,
day three, dreaded it
but something happened about day three or day four,
I don't really remember.
I should've looked at my journal before we spoke,
all of a sudden, things were not as difficult.
And I knew the flow.
'Cause I'm somebody who like writes notes for everything.
I'm somebody who had to watch and pause
and watch and pause
'cause I want to do it right.
I want to do exactly how she's doing it.
And at one point Michelle said,
if you can't do this,
that's okay,
get where you're at.
And I thought, you know what,
stop trying to follow her exactly.
I love the big group ones.
Stop trying to follow her exactly
and just follow what your body wants to do.
I could do downward dog.
I'm not super tight.
My hip flexors were tight
but other than that,
but everything else hurt.
Rolling on the ball hurt.
I had so many knots and tension.
It might've been about day five
but right in the first week,
all of a sudden,
or the first week of doing it,
things started loosening up
and I'm like wow,
the ball didn't hurt as much today.
And then I had to think about that.
Why didn't it hurt anymore?
And I thought okay, you can just
put it away for a little bit
and I thought don't analyze it.
I thought, no, you have to analyze it so it can work, right?
This is important.
So I started realizing,
I think it was combined with now I had faith.
Now it wasn't like,
I think Wyatt had said hokey pokey,
like he wasn't into the ancestry, something like that
and I think that was holding me back a little bit.
And I thought, oh no, you have to think
about the people that walked before you
and whether you got along with your dad or not,
you have to thank him
because without him, you wouldn't have life
and once I started doing all that,
the movement got so much easier
and I looked forward to it
and I do it every single day.
My advice to everybody and every time
in that wonderful Facebook group that I just love--
-: Isn't it the best?
-: Oh my gosh, it is.
But I tell everybody starting just trust it,
just don't fight it
'cause I think internally
we fight things that feel different.
If it hurts, we fight it.
If it feels a little different, we fight it,
even if we don't realize we're fighting it.
When we actually think about it,
I'm fighting it, I'm gonna stop fighting it
for it to stop.
It was fantastic. 
-: 100%.
And when you fight it,
you do tense.
So there's like,
there's such a mind body connection
that you realize was happening
and it's, yeah I can't tell you
how many times Michelle has just like,
she knows what she's doing.
I don't know,
she knows what she is doing.
-: Well and too I wanted to say,
for the people who are like medical,
I spent years,
okay, I actually had to dissect cadavers to be an OT.
I know all about the muscles,
I know all about the nerves.
I'm a very science based person.
I get science, I get neuro.
I am the one who gets to train everybody
in how the brain responds to stuff
and how the body responds to stuff,
like I eat it up
and so when I had to tie the muscles to ancestry
that was so counterintuitive
of what I've always had to do
and I think that's why I struggled at first.
Even though I go to Buddhist temple
and I do a lot of different things
and I read a lot of different mindfulness stuff
and I teach students mindfulness,
I wasn't relating it to that.
And I thought, oh my gosh, that makes total sense.
When they first diagnosed,
I had my gallbladder wasn't working,
the only way they diagnosed it
is I had right shoulder pain.
Then they went in and did the test.
And I'm like how does right shoulder pain
mean my gallbladder?
And the doctor was like no,
we're gonna check it out
'cause you didn't injure it.
And it was my gallbladder.
And I had to go back to that,
like yeah, you have trigger points for things.
If it works with your organs,
come on, you have to like really think about it,
we are not just science.
Our bodies are not just science.
We're not just cells.
They're important
but they're not everything.
-: And we're this whole system
that works together.
It's amazing.
And we're not taught that.
There's no class in school that teaches that.
No class I ever went to.
-: No, me neither.
-: Yeah and it's amazing work
and I think,
I'm just so stoked for you
and I'm so happy for you
that you just decided to do this
and now you're seeing all of these benefits
'cause it really is like
these tools, you'll have forever.
-: Oh definitely.
And I don't go back,
there hasn't been,
we ate out one day, I don't remember what it was,
I don't remember what it was
but we went to a place that we go to
that I know has quality food
and I used to eat this big bean and brown rice
and avocado burrito
every time we went.
This was our every Friday night,
our every Friday night used to be a fast food place
but then we found this place.
And I used to think of it like oh that's my treat.
Well now we
I don't remember what made us go there
but we went
and I ate like a third of it
'cause I really was full.
And I saved it for a few days
and it lasted and it was fine
but I think for me,
a huge gift was I don't think of food as a treat anymore.
I used to always think,
oh well I'm going on,
like this week, we're going to South Dakota,
we're gonna be gone for 10 days.
It's our honeymoon,
we had to postpone last year,
we're super excited
but I would've like got Starbucks
in the car on the way there,
I would have ate junk food,
I would have had a whole car full of junk
just to eat
because it's my treat
and I'll get back to it after vacation.
Now it's like,
man, I have things planned for the car if I'm hungry
but I know I won't snack while we're driving
'cause I don't need that anymore.
I don't think of food as a treat anymore
which is really weird to me
'cause I've done that for,
I'm 50, so at least 35 years.
It just amazes me.
I didn't give my kids treats.
I think my son was in third grade
before he even knew that a Twinkie existed.
He had no clue what they were.
He thought they were something brand new
when somebody at school had 'em.
So why would I think of food as a treat for myself?
There's so many other things
I could treat myself with.
-: Yeah, that's such a huge mindset shift.
-: It's crazy.
But I think one of the problems now is
my beautiful,
I've always had like bowls of fruit everywhere,
to me that's art,
and they're always empty.
My fruit bowl is empty.
I have a fruit bowl on the table
I have one over there,
it's got a watermelon in it.
They're always empty now
'cause we're always eating it.
And here's another thing too,
I wanted to tell you about the program,
that I love and I'm so grateful for,
every other reset I did would limit your fruit
to like one cup a day.
That made no sense to me. 
-: Forget about it.
-: And you mean I have to eat it before noon.
What if I want fruit in the evening?
And that totally F's with your mind.
You're telling me
that this isn't good for me?
I've always thought fruit was good for me.
And when I read it and you said,
at least three fruits a day,
I'm like yes.
I love fruit and summer's coming
and I love,
if I want to eat a mango,
I want to eat a mango.
I don't want to think,
oh gosh, it's five o'clock, I can't have a mango.
-: No, oh my gosh.
It drives me batty.
It's like that's how you stay stuck.
That is how you stay stuck in that mindset of deprivation.
And it's like for the love of God, it's fruit.
It came from a tree.
We are designed to eat fruit and to digest fruit.
So hallelujah, man.
Any program or anybody that says
that you shouldn't eat fruit,
I want to, it drives me crazy.
-: Yeah.
It always drove me crazy
and then somebody had said to me in my family,
you eat way too much fruit.
And I thought about it
and I was like oh, do I eat too much fruit?
And I thought wait a minute,
you're drinking a beer and eating a cheesy pizza
with three kinds of meat,
I'm not listening to you.
All these years I've had to say that to myself
and I'm like--
-: No, it's like reality check,
hold on, just a second,
it's like okay, too much fruit is bad but like
that big dish of cheese and drink are fine.
I think that people just overcomplicate it.
People just overcomplicate it.
-: And I overcomplicate.
-: Yeah.
And then in reality,
it's so much more simple than people make it out to be
and we make it for ourself.
But I think that we're kind of designed to do that.
We're designed to just analyze shit
and sometimes it gets us in trouble.
And what this program does
is like it leaves you no room for bullshit.
-: Like this is the freedom that you guys
have gifted to us,
or at least to me.
So if I don't want breakfast till like 10:30
and I've been up at five,
well I'm not hungry for three meals and a smoothie
'cause by the time that they go,
I really do try and have my dinner by 6:30
just 'cause I sleep better.
And I'm like, oh, well I can have my smoothie
and a smaller portion at lunch.
What are you worried about?
It doesn't have to be regimented.
The Facebook group has been amazing, too.
It's really nice to have that support
and to know others are trying things with you
and you get to find out what they try
and I did vent on there once
and I felt really bad about it later
'cause I was like I vented about being at a grad party
and somebody trying to sabotage me
and then I was like, really,
I just said, thank you everybody,
I'm gonna shut off comments
'cause I thought,
I don't really want to make you
have to fight for me.
Why did you do that?
It was nice to have that support
'cause I was so angry at the time
but I thought,
yeah I don't want to put that out there into this group
because this group is just oh my God, it's fantastic.
-: Isn't it awesome?
And that's exactly why I knew
that this group was gonna be amazing
'cause everybody is going through this process.
So we're right with each other.
It's like everybody's on the same page
and I think just like you have more,
are more calm and maybe more patient now,
it's like that's just part of this.
And we do,
the mindset changes,
the attitude changes,
the stuff that irritates you change,
the way that you express your irritation changes.
It's just so much.
And when you have a group of people
who are all on the same page,
man, that's amazing.
We don't even have to moderate that group,
which is incredible. 
-: Oh yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, and the juices,
I used to juice years ago
and I don't remember,
I think I fell out of it
'cause I just,
I was making the same juice every day
and I just, I got tired of washing,
I don't know what it was,
my bottles, I don't know what it was
but we just kind of fell out of it.
So when it started,
my husband was like, oh, would you juice for me too again?
And I'm like absolutely
because he is
where I'm plant-based,
he's I'm gonna eat Captain Crunch
at two o'clock in the bed in the middle of the night,
like it's two spectrums
but he makes sure I have food,
I make sure he has food,
we are where we are,
he's like the best person
plus we had our year anniversary yesterday
so I have to say all this gushy stuff.
But so he drinks a green juice every morning
and he's noticing
that he feels a huge difference.
He's like yeah,
I thought he wouldn't on the weekends
'cause he's not going to work
but he's like oh yeah, no, I want my juice on the weekend.
And he'll get up and I'm like, oh awesome.
I loved having the recipes to start
but your video just helps with saying,
eh, just throw in this and I taste it.
If it's not what I want,
I throw more in.
I'm like yeah, you don't have to have your computer out
every single day
and try to memorize this stuff.
-: And get it down exactly to how it's written.
I mean and I think that's just part of overthinking it too
and trying to be like perfect.
There's so much freedom in this.
And I think we just get into the habit
of like wanting to do it perfect
but it's like what is that?
So you put a little bit less ginger
or turmeric instead of ginger.
Just do it.
And I think that's awesome.
I love talking to you
because it's like everything that I had hoped
for this program
and for people going through it,
I hear you talking,
I'm like yes,
that's exactly what we wanted.
So it's so awesome
to actually hear you bring that to life
and we did a really good job.
-: You did.
You did a fant,
and I'm hoping,
I talked to my sister about it
and I'm hoping that at some point,
'cause she's not plant-based,
but she's struggling with some things
and I'm thinking, if people who aren't plant-based
could get turned on,
for me it was easier
'cause I was already plant-based
so that part was easy,
but people who aren't plant-based
would benefit so much from this
and they would start feeling
how great they feel with the food,
then maybe we'll turn more people
onto the community and save this planet of ours
at the same time.
So let's just get more people.
-: Totally, exactly.
And really I wanted to talk with you
'cause I haven't done it yet
and I know that there's,
because this program,
and especially the movement portion
is kind of hard to explain,
we can only put so much on that landing page.
And so I think a lot of people,
initially just because they are in our community
and they know us and they trust us,
they signed up for it,
but there's people who are on the fence
who are like, I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into.
So I really wanted to start talking with people
so that we can shed some light on it
and let people know like hey,
just trust us and do it
because you'll feel so good.
-: Yeah, and it's not like you're asking somebody
to take steroids and take all these supplements.
It's like really it's good for you to try it.
Nothing that is being asked of you is,
or actually I don't even want to say asked,
nothing that is being proposed is gonna hurt you.
So just give it a few days and try it.
I know some people have talked about
like oh, they're really gonna want their wine
or their coffee.
So I don't like the taste of coffee
so I was lucky that way too.
I was pretty lucky.
I realized through this, though,
I don't have cravings,
I don't really crave anything.
What I craved was making myself throw up,
that's what I craved.
So I use the self talk video
that you talk about talking through cravings,
I used it any time I had the urge.
If I ate too late at night,
then it's just sitting there
and that feeling's back
and I was like mmm, let's talk about this,
okay, how do you feel?
How does that feel?
Yeah, it doesn't feel good.
Is it gonna feel good
if you make yourself,
it's gonna feel good initially
but how's it gonna feel later?
So I used your self talk for that.
For me, it wasn't the craving, it was for that.
But I did realize that
I didn't think I snacked that much but we have,
I have behind me, my husband has a big glass jar
of tortilla chips
and every week, I was buying them, every week
and then all of sudden I'm not buying them
and I'm like, wow, you're not eating anymore.
He goes, babe, that wasn't me,
you were eating them.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I really was.
Now they go stale and I throw 'em out
and I buy him more
'cause I don't even think about that stuff.
And we have a little candy jar
that has stuff in it and I don't,
it's sitting there
and I thought about doing,
do I want to just get rid of that
and I thought, no, it doesn't really tempt me.
I walk by and I look at it.
I don't want it.
-: It's weird.
Isn't it weird though, to have that be gone?
It's a really weird thing that it's like,
it's almost like a light
that just gets turned off.
It's like for me and chocolate.
I haven't had chocolate
since I started the Lighten Up
like when we launched,
and I'm like I cannot believe I haven't had chocolate
in like going on two months
and I don't think about it.
It's so weird to have that just be a non,
like something that I don't even think of.
It's so strange and awesome.
I think that it's really interesting,
everybody has their thing,
whether it's throwing themselves up,
whether it's chocolate,
whether it's binging,
whether it's severe cookie addiction,
whatever it is,
every single one of us has our thing
and I think it's beautiful
that you are able to apply,
you were talking about that self talk video that I did,
I kind of did an example of what that looks like
in one of those videos,
and the fact that you could use that
and apply it to the area that you struggle with
and the area for you that's challenging,
I love that
because I think we're all so much alike.
And it's just a reminder of like
we all have our different shit
but the stuff that we go through is so similar.
-: It's amazing.
It really is amazing.
I know when it hit me
was like so many light bulbs happen
during this, right?
So during the process, it was like the movement,
all of a sudden something didn't hurt anymore
or all of a sudden something hurt
when a thought came in my mind.
It was like light bulb,
oh my goodness,
there's the connection.
Drinking the juice,
I was drinking the juice one day
and all of a sudden it was like,
it's gonna sound hokey but I don't care,
I'm just gonna say it,
all of a sudden I just felt fantastic.
I felt like fresh and warm and just super energetic
and like almost giddy.
And I was like wow, light bulb,
this is what your body wanted.
Your body's telling you,
yeah, that's what I wanted.
I don't want that
and I love tea,
I have a whole bunch of tea there,
but I don't even really drink tea anymore.
I used to drink tea every morning
and probably in the winter, I will
but I thought, no, I'll just go out to the garden
and pick some spearmint leaves
or some lemon balm leaves
if I want something different
but really all I ever really want is water anymore.
I didn't mind the warm water.
I know some people worry about that,
but I've always had water in the morning when I wake up
but I don't need to add lemon to my water.
And if you do, that's fine.
But for me, it's like,
oh, this is what my body wants.
It's amazing to actually know
that your body has been telling you all these years
what you want.
And I don't want to say the old me
but the previous me
would've been like, oh, yeah,
I wish I would've found this sooner,
all those years I wasted.
But I don't feel like that.
I'm like, you know what, this is where I needed to be
at the right time.
I might not have gotten the same out of it
if I would've done this a year ago
or two years ago.
I really feel like the universe puts you where you want.
When I was looking for that first recipe,
and I don't remember what the recipe was,
but I found the recipe
and then I watched your welcome video,
that day, I signed up.
So I think I had been in the community
like a year and a half.
I was like oh my gosh,
you're telling me
that I'm gonna feel better
but you're also telling me
that if I want it, I can have it.
There's no restrictions.
And that's I think the beauty of Lighten Up.
There's guidelines to follow
but basically you say, you're an adult.
If you want it, go ahead.
We're not gonna tell you no.
Just talk to yourself first.
I was like, wow, I can do it if I want it?
I have control over my life?
I have control over everything?
And it's just so much better
than anything else I've tried.
I don't have a gym membership anymore.
I work out in my garage.
I do have a punching bag out there
for days that work is super stressful.
But it's much better than alcohol for me.
But now it's like I just feel
like I have control over everything.
If I want to do something, I can
and then I think about it
and days will go by and I'm like,
oh, I didn't even want that.
That's so strange for me.
That is just so,
35 years I've been like fighting food
and I've had such a toxic relationship with food
and now it's like,
I'm so grateful for food
'cause it makes me feel great.
It's my friend,
it makes me feel good when I want it
and it's just amazing to me.
Yeah, it makes me want to cry sometimes.
I'm just so happy about it.
And I want to tell everybody
but I know when I start talking,
they're gonna be like oh God, here she goes again.
So I just have to like wait till they ask me.
-: And they'll know where to go too
when they're ready to ask too
'cause you're glowing and you are happy
and that radiates off you.
And so people notice that.
But I think it's like,
so much of this is just like
really about taking responsibility for yourself.
-: Absolutely.
-: And just like standing up and being like,
yeah, I can have that if I want
and then I'm gonna probably not feel great.
So maybe,
it's just about taking responsibility
and pausing and thinking it through
and not going on autopilot
'cause when you go to that autopilot,
that's when you get in trouble
'cause like you were saying,
in the morning, you would've had tea
or you would've,
it's like all this extra stuff
that we always think that we need
but really, it's like,
our body wants simple stuff.
-: It's so much easier.
-: It's so much easier.
It's so much easier.
And then you realize like wow,
that was a lot of energy put into food
now that's free for other things
like for the movement practice, for example.
-: Exactly.
Well and then groceries too,
like I know people worry
'cause fruit is expensive
and when you're juicing,
some of the fruit is expensive.
Luckily, it's summer time here in Michigan
and so I have a really big garden
and so I have tons of greens
coming out of the garden every day,
not that greens are too expensive.
But I realized that yeah, my grocery bill
went up a little bit
but then I started tracking it,
it really didn't go up
because I'm not buying convenience foods, right,
I'm not eating out.
If I take my grocery budget is higher,
but my other budget is lower.
You have to really pay attention to that.
I do buy organic for my juicing
just because I think,
well if I'm gonna juice it,
I'm gonna put this in [inaudible],
and it is more expensive,
but things even out.
And if you think about it,
and I'm not spending the money on healthcare.
I don't take a single,
the only supplement I take
is I take the Alpine Organics
and I had been taking those,
daily vitamin.
My B12 now,
I just actually had a physical last week,
for years, before I was even vegan, I had to take shots
every week and once a month.
My B12 numbers are ridiculous.
She's like, what are you doing?
Why are your B12 numbers?
Luckily, I have a super supportive doctor.
So that's fantastic. 
-: Nice.
-: But I don't take melatonin.
I sometimes take it
when I really have a big day the next day.
I was taking tons of things to help me sleep.
I was taking that cheaper version of Nyquil.
I don't have to do all that anymore.
I don't buy all these extra,
I don't buy vitamin C,
I don't buy vitamin D,
I don't buy all that stuff.
So if you think about your budget as a whole
as opposed to groceries versus something else,
my advice to everybody would be
just go for it
and really track your expenses other ways
and you won't feel so bad about spending money on food
which I don't know why
we feel bad about spending money on food,
spending money on a lot of things.
-: I mean that's the fucked up part.
When I used to smoke and drink,
I would have no hesitation
buying two bottles of wine and a pack of cigarettes.
I would never think about that,
and I smoked American Spirit,
so they were like $10.
I would never think about that 30 bucks
that I just blew
and it would be done that night.
But buying organic food is like,
oh I can't,
but it's like, no you can,
it's just what your priorities are.
And it's true.
Let food be thy medicine, right?
And so we think about it,
yeah but this food might be more expensive
but man, it's keeping you healthy
and happy and giving you energy.
It's a no brainer.
The trade-off is so great.
-: Everything about it was a gift.
So I'm so grateful to you and to Michelle
and to Luanne
and I don't know who else
were part of designing this,
I just know the three of you
and I'm super grateful.
I feel even better
than I felt when I turned 50
which is kind of funny.
I never really worried about age too much
but 50 was like, oh my goodness, you're 50.
I thought, you know what, I love my life,
I love my home, I loved my job,
I loved how I feel.
Who cares how old I am?
But I do,
I feel like things have over the last month,
month and a half,
have just evolved even better.
Now my spirit matches how I've been feeling.
So people notice that I'm just,
I just feel fantastic.
So I'm super grateful,
super grateful that I did it,
I will always follow it,
the classroom was fantastic the way it was designed,
the videos that you guys added,
the documents, everything.
I printed it out into a big binder.
And I know that's kind of silly
because I open up the computer
'cause I want to actually see your faces when I do it
and I wanted to say too,
the movement, when you guys did the group movements,
those were so helpful, so helpful
because you guys were all at different levels.
It was helpful for that.
It wasn't like, oh wow,
I'm gonna follow so and so,
it was like oh, everybody else has their own tightness
and everybody has their own issues
and it just made it more real and just,
you could tell it wasn't scripted.
-: Oh yeah, not at all.
Michelle's dog and--
-: Yeah and when you lost your golf ball,
I lose my golf ball all the time.
So I was like, yeah, this is life.
So it was fantastic.
So you guys did an amazing job.
-: Yeah, well thank you so much.
And it is because it's our life.
It was so important for us
to get this out there
because there's just
I couldn't write a blog post
that covers all of this.
I couldn't write an ebook that covers this.
And because we go so in depth
and because we do this,
Michelle's and my piece work so well together,
it's like the only way to really
get all of this information
and get it to you guys was to do this.
And so I'm so glad that we did
and it is,
this is Michelle's life,
this is my life
and now, I keep hearing things that people are saying
about like waking up early for example,
and I keep saying like welcome to my life,
now everybody knows how I feel, yay,
so I'm not alone anymore.
-: And it's a big bonus for my husband
'cause he likes to sleep in
so I'm always up with the dogs.
Every weekend, he's like baby you sleep in tomorrow
and I'll get the dogs.
If you hear them, wake me up.
And I'm like, the problem is I'm up before the dogs.
'Cause they have their own bedroom.
They go in a bedroom at night.
And you've got three,
you tend to have a room for them.
And I'm like I didn't hear them babe,
I woke up and then I went and woke them up.
So he's like pumped 'cause he gets to sleep in
'cause I'm always the one up with the dogs.
But that's okay.
-: I know, it's ridiculous, I know.
The amount of energy
and it's just like,
and the other really cool thing, too, quickly,
is I don't know if you've noticed
but I will not be tired until I go to bed
and then I go to sleep,
I go right to sleep
and then I wake up totally refreshed.
It's not like,
it's just like okay, my body just does what it needs to do.
It just recharges and then that's it.
Like wow.
-: Yeah, I used to wake up
like five, six times a night.
Lots of times I would wake up,
well I'd wake up a lot to go to the bathroom
'cause I'm 50
and I've had a few surgeries in the past.
But I used to wake up
and a thought would go in my head
and I couldn't fall asleep.
I had at least one or two sleepless nights a week.
And we were just talking about it,
I'm like I don't have that.
We go to bed,
and he usually has the TV on
and I'm out.
I put the little eye thing on,
and a little ear plug in and I'm out.
And then I wake up to go to the bathroom
and then I come back and I'm out.
I'm almost like foggy
but I don't wake up feeling hungover
or anything like that.
I know I slept.
-: You're tired when you're meant to be tired.
-: Just feel so much better.
And emotionally, I feel like I have,
like this is my life
and nobody else is guiding it but me.
And it's taken me 50 years to realize
that I guide my own life.
-: Yeah!
There's so many people that I hear doing it
because of the, exactly to lose weight,
and that's fine, whatever the reasons are,
I always say that is totally personal
but once you go through this experience,
that's when it can hit you like oh,
yeah, okay, well that's nice
but this piece was always missing.
This much bigger piece was missing.
And when everything else was addressed,
then all of a sudden,
oh, I did lose some weight too.
It's crazy how it works.
Yeah, well thank you so much.
This has been awesome.
I really enjoyed talking with you
and I'm just so happy for you.
I'm so, so stoked
that you are feeling good and kicking ass
and feel like you have these tools
and you can just keep flying with it.
That's the whole point, so awesome,
awesome job and thank you, thank you so much
for just trusting us
and for following along
because like we could've done this whole program
and it would've done nothing for you
if you just didn't trust us
and you threw in the towel and said, fuck it,
I'm not gonna do it.
So you did the work,
you showed up for yourself
and so thank you for doing that
and thank you for sharing your experience.
I feel very fortunate to have had this talk with you
and really grateful that you're allowing me
to share it as well.
-: Yeah, no, thank you very much.
If anybody else can learn from my experience,
I'm good for it.
But it was so nice talking to you.
I feel like I'm like, wow,
I actually get to talk to Molly,
So say hi to Michelle and Luanne for me too, please.
-: I definitely will.
And you guys have an awesome vacation.
-: We will.
You'll see pictures.
I'm sure I'll be posting them in the group.
So thank you so much.
-: All right, have a great time.
Thanks Kim.
-: Bye bye. 
-: Bye.
