Polly Mertens: 0:27

Hey, superstars welcome back Polly here and Sam Pruitt, what’s up, beautiful humans.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:33

Hey you guys. I love our topic today. I will kick it off by giving you the title, because it’s pretty much a big part of your life right now, for sure has been for a long time, and mine as well. Yep, get fit, there’s no wrong way. Get fit, there’s no wrong way.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:49

So I know we’re going to wrong way.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:51

We have so much to share about this and, like you said before we click, record is like the stories we could tell, so so kick us off, my dear. What do we want to start with here?

Samantha Pruitt: 1:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we say there’s no wrong way, what we mean is what you do, how you do it, where you do it, how much of it you do is up to you, the person, the individual in the individual, body and mind and brain and life that they own Right. So I think what we really want to impart today in our conversation and, yeah, we have a bunch of crazy stories is that the human listening right now, who tuned into this, the brave soul, the brave, awesome human, they’re building themselves. Fitness is about building you. So when you think about a fitness program, it’s not about other people, it’s about the individual. And so, really, what we want to deliver the key message and we’ll come up with all kinds of ways that they can go about doing that, but again, it’s their journey. So, yeah, there’s no wrong way, there’s no one way, there’s no right way. Ooh, I hate that.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:06

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:06

You know, and I want to set the stage. It’s like you said, building you. It’s like a relationship with your fitness, it’s a relationship you create with yourself. Yeah, answerable to no one. Thank you very much.

Samantha Pruitt: 2:20

No, no no, exactly Nobody else is telling you what fitness needs to look like. Although we do start off life with some external cues and programming, and I would say because we have billions of dollars being fed into marketing in the diet and fitness world, there’s a lot that penetrates our outer environment of what fitness should be, could be, ought to be. You know the shoulda, woulda, you know type of mentality and you and I are here to like crack through and bust open all of those paradigms. You know societal norms or whatever it’s like shut that out and tune into you. So let’s, let’s hear it, my dear, what?

Polly Mertens: 3:02

do we want? Yeah, and tune into you. So let’s, let’s hear it, my dear, what do we want? And that can be challenging for a human like me who’s been in this professionally for now 25 years in some way shape or form, since I first found fitness in my late twenties and approaching 30. Right, so it’s. It might sound a little ludicrous coming from a coach like me who’s been in the space, right, but that’s actually further educated me and opened my own eyes to the human in front of me and what is different and unique and possible for them, and then myself as well, you know, giving myself that permission to, to explore and be different. So, yeah, let’s get into it a little bit.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:46

And just to set the stage. So, samantha Pruitt, if you guys don’t know what she’s saying in her career or you know part of her life and you’ve had many lives and many careers, I know but is like a cat nine lives.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:05

It’s definitely you’ve been a trainer, you know, mean you the amount like I’m like if I want to know anything about nutrition for whatever, I’m like Samantha, it’s like my personal Wikipedia. I just ping you and you’re like no about this right, so like you consume so much massive information and you are a peak elite athlete. You’re an endurance runner athlete. You have been. I mean, you know, if you were watching this, not just listening to this, samantha is sitting in her office with a stack just piles of medals that just show the miles and the experience, right, and you are in the middle, as we record this, of your journey through yet another Ironman, like full Ironman.

Polly Mertens: 4:40

Ironwoman 2.0.

Samantha Pruitt: 4:42

Ironwoman yeah, so I just wanted to set that context of you know, the arc of your journey. My journey looks a little different and stuff like that, but it’s a journey, it’s an evolution. I want to say, and that’s really. You know, what we’re imparting here is it’s not us standing on a pedestal like this is what you need to do, or whatever, but it’s inviting people into a conversation to have a new relationship, as we have and evolved down in our 50s what is fitness for us and and employ with you listening to try on some different things, right, yeah, so we should journey back just for a hot second each of us and tell our journey, our story, a little bit.

Polly Mertens: 5:18

So my first um, you know, intro appetizer, if you into the word fitness and the world of fitness was around sixth, seventh grade, entering into junior high. I was chubby. I had a very bad perm. Okay, and all of you at some point Okay, Even you dudes had bad perms. I know you did If you’re in my age.

Polly Mertens: 5:51

Oh, so chubby, bad perm, hanging out with some friends and in particular I was caretaken, if you will, by another family and they became like aunts and uncles and cousins, and you know, lots was going on in my family. So I was pseudo adopted into this family. Anyway, the mother of that family started a group of all of us young gals in the same age bracket who were, you know, chubby, and she called us the chubby club. So we literally belong to what we called jokingly, but not the chubby club. And so the irony of that is, you know, we would do these daily TV exercises Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda and the likes. So we do these things you know, javascript size and whatever it all was in the living room of this house, wow, watching these TV tapes yes, yes, they were tapes at that time.

Polly Mertens: 6:52

And then the rest of the day we would be eating ho-hos and twinkies and junk food and whatever the hell we wanted. We didn’t even connect that what we put in our mouth was you, you know, shaping or not shaping the health of this body. But we were also labeled in this way as, like, the chubby club. This was a thing and this is how we were going to get unchubby. It was so bizarre, what bizarre messages to be experiencing at that really critical development stage of my life. Yeah, so that was a thing. Yeah, and okay. So I didn’t really like exercise, right, because it wasn’t making sense. Of course my body wasn’t changing. I didn’t feel better. I was eating junk, right? None of this was working, right, right.

Polly Mertens: 7:35

I mean like yeah yeah, I mean those dolphin shorts and the leggings, and I mean none of this was working. None of this was working. So then comes along junior high, right, and that at that point I became more like socially connected to other females and the male species in the school system and all that kind of stuff, and realized, hey, the people that you know look good which I thought that was what I was aspiring to do here is to look better. Right, those people are athletes, they’re skinny, they’re athletic, they have different bodies, different shapes. I want to look like that, because those are the ones that have the boyfriends and you know, are doing the cheerleading or the sports or whatever.

Polly Mertens: 8:21

They’re the popular kids, if you will, right, yeah, so then the pendulum slowly swung the other way junior high and then into high school, around, you know, disordered eating and starvation and doing all these other radical things to try and get skinny again, not fit, not healthy, but skinny, because society was showing me that that’s where the rewards were Right. And again, I wasn’t being educated or I wasn’t in an environment that I was being told anything different than that, or or mentored or shown in any way that that was different, right.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:56

Yeah.

Polly Mertens: 8:57

So that was a little bit of my experience. And then some really unhealthy things happened into adulthood, young adulthood. And then I did find a little bit of fitness at the end of high school where I walked onto and everybody got on a volleyball team for girls and we started actually doing some physical activity beyond PE. Nobody did PE, we just pretended we did it. I mean, we weren’t doing PE, nobody was running those laps around the buildings, no, but anyway. So that was my first experience into like sports and what that might feel like and that felt great, except, you know, it wasn’t really supported, so we didn’t do very well and whatever, but at least there was an intro there.

Polly Mertens: 9:37

And then came adulthood, and then all of these dysfunctional patterns and beliefs just kept following me. Right, the cycle was never broken. So I went through cycles of overeating, undereating, overexercising, underexercising, like I was never doing these things in this giant fitness bucket, if you will, or healthy lifestyle bucket, for the sake of me, to actually understand that, the physical activity I would or would not do, the nutritional aspects, the mindset, you know, activities that wouldn’t affect my fitness, would it?

Samantha Pruitt: 10:15

Can I click on something here just for a second? So our tagline is how your life feels is more important than how it looks. And as you’re saying this, I’m just it’s screaming in the back of my ear. So I just want to say it is like you were living for how your body looked, not how you felt in your body.

Polly Mertens: 10:35

Yes. And actually I’ve personally felt trapped in my body and in my brain Like I had a lot of dysfunctional mental stuff when I was young also, and especially in that like high school age.

Polly Mertens: 10:48

I mean I ended up we all do yeah, yeah, I mean Lots of poor decisions and crazy things were going on, but nothing made sense, like I didn’t have it all. Yeah, understanding that if I did certain behaviors, they would make me feel better or worse. I didn’t actually see a correlation, which is kind of bizarre, but we weren’t taught anything different.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:10

Well, and, and you know, no, no big harm to our parents because they didn’t know either.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:15

You know the school systems like no education, mental health has only appeared, let’s say, on the horizon of popular culture or popular psychology. I was just watching something Oprah had presented that you know all the years she did 25 years of the Oprah show, right, oh yeah, and she talks about how she got her therapy from being on the Oprah show, like being, you know, right in front of the audience, like dang you know, like aha moments in front of whatever, right, wow, you could see her journey, whatever. And she’s like there was no therapy back then and if anybody was in it, they sure as hell didn’t talk about it, right, like it was like taboo or whatever. So what we’re talking about is the generation and the time period that you and I grew up in. It was not understood.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:00

Well, that parents didn’t know about it. People, people weren’t educated, there wasn’t an understanding we’re still just now understanding, I mean the, the amount of that we don’t understand about how our brains and systems and emotions completely work. I mean, neuroscience is a, you know, expanding area. Yeah, so this was like us bumping around in life with carrying trauma, building more trauma, trying to figure it out, if you will, right?

Polly Mertens: 12:26

So and the link between the physical body’s health and the mental and emotional body’s health, as if they were two separate units.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:36

I had no idea. None of this Like I remember my wake up moment, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 12:40

We laugh because it’s so ludicrous.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:42

Oh yeah.

Polly Mertens: 12:43

So keep going.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:43

Okay.

Polly Mertens: 12:45

So, just on my journey, obviously in then into adulthood, I did discover running at one point and it’s because I had had a baby. I got married young, I had a baby and I wanted to lose the baby weight. I gained a lot of weight during the baby and had some health problems shocker Um and then came out of that and couldn’t lose weight. So I found jogging, got the whole baby jogger movement was all happening or whatever. Yeah, it was horrible, by the way, it hurt and I hated it. But, um, I discovered it nonetheless as a tool, but yet that was still a tool I was trying to utilize to lose weight. Yeah, again, still not making the connection between everything else and that fitness tool, if you will.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:29

Yeah, this was not done for emotional health you know well being reasons.

Polly Mertens: 13:33

It was like lose weight, yeah, yeah yes, exactly, get back into that beach body I never had a beach body, but you know that whole like concept is completely ludicrous. Beach body I never had a beach body, but you know that whole like concept is completely ludicrous. And then fast forward divorced, remarried life, jobs, moving, et cetera, et cetera. And I just went on this cycle continuously up and down, up and down, not just weight, but also, you know, disordered eating, mental and emotional disruption, all the chaos that rains down Sometimes for some people I was one of them.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:06

I’m like you seem so you know like you’ve come so far to hear this story, even knowing you like I do, I’m just like. I’m like you know, like the arc that you’ve been on the groundedness, the diplomat, the compassionate, the connected woman I know you to be now. I mean like connected to yourself, to others, to like I mean you’re, you’re a still water inside, right, you know things can bounce around and whatever, but to know you and to hear this, I’m just like wow, you’ve done so much beautiful work on yourself to get to this point.

Polly Mertens: 14:41

It’s yourself to get to this point. It’s, it’s just amazing. So love it. It has been a journey worth every bit of it, no doubt about it. But it has been a journey and that’s part of our message too. Right, like we are so worth doing this work. Double click on that, yeah.

Polly Mertens: 14:57

So health crisis in my late twenties developed autoimmune disease Again. My weight was up. I was 50 pounds heavier than I am at this moment, and so in trying to heal that illness that went undiagnosed for several years and all the stuff that came with that, I went back to school, studied holistic health, became a coach and a trainer and in that journey of just for the first time in my life at 30, learning about how this body works, this human body, how this brain works as human brain, learning what is possible, leaving the Western medicine and all of its limitations that they kept opposing on me, leaving those and walking into myself, my own life and taking real ownership and control back, if you will, around, how this was going to go, how my life journey and my physical and mental health journey would go, that was the real, you know, catalyst for me was making that decision, making those choices. I rediscovered exercise and, of course, it started pretty ugly and bumpy and it was not enjoyable and chaos. I mean, seriously, it was so not pretty. You know you’re overweight, you don’t feel good, everything hurts. You don’t even know what you’re doing, you don’t know why you’re doing it, you know all of that kind of stuff, and I was slowly learning those things, step by step, and so found fitness again and work my way into a YMCA, got on the treadmill, slowly discovered running and then, lo and behold, I found for myself that fitness was a key element to building not just my physical, mental and emotional life but my whole life. So I literally quit my job. We ended up moving. I mean, I changed everything about the way I operated in the world and fitness was at the foundation of all of that.

Polly Mertens: 16:54

Of course, you know nutrition and all these other modalities as well, but, like, fitness has been with me since then and it really I couldn’t go a day without it. I think that that’s just how humans were meant to evolve now and how I understand the brain and the body to work. Found running, found triathlon, as you know, eventually worked my way from zero to Iron Woman, the first time 13 years ago, and now I’m on my Iron Woman 2.0 journey at age 55. But in there found ultra running, found all kinds of sports, crossfit, everything. I’ve tried it all because I’m so curious and I want to continue on the path of discovering and it’s one of the ways that you and I have connected and we’ve built communities and all of that around fitness being kind of at the core of who we are as humans.

Samantha Pruitt: 17:46

Yeah, you know, and I want to just add that I don’t want people to put you out on some sort of a pedestal Like like. This is you are a average Jill, if you will, like 100 percent. You are just as human, like you, your genetics are horrible Okay. I mean, I got nothing yeah.

Polly Mertens: 18:10

Both my parents are deceased. Everybody died early of heart attacks and cancer. Like the whole thing is not good people, we are just average women in the world choosing to do it differently.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:24

Be extraordinary, be extraordinary, you know. And the other thing I wanted to just point out is like the path that I hear is how much you self-educated, you know. It was like when we put our power in someone else to tell us or guide us and we, you know, I remember my aunt and uncle years ago they’re a bit older than I am going into doctors and they would just like go to the doctor and whatever the doctor said they would like, that’s it. You know. This is Western medicine, if you will. And I was like, and have you educated yourself?

Samantha Pruitt: 18:57

You know, like rheumatoid arthritis, my aunt has really bad rheumatoid arthritis from years, right, and just never educated beyond the scope of what you go into a doctor like, hey, this is what I’ve got and their capabilities is the limit of her exposure to a cure, a possible solution, right. And you were like, I’m not stopping until I understand myself the situation. Like you and I are so focused on root, solute, problem solving let’s call it that’s not even the right word, but it’s like if something is out of alignment in the body, the emotional, the mental, we don’t just like, oh, cover that up or settle for that or whatever, cause we’ve both seen how in our lives it festers it manifests, it pumps out somewhere else.

Samantha Pruitt: 19:44

If it’s like, oh yeah, don’t, don’t look at that thing or I don’t need to deal with with that trauma, capital T, you know whatever, oh, oh yeah, you will, oh yeah.

Polly Mertens: 19:53

She will come a knocking yeah, and it’s not to say so.

Samantha Pruitt: 19:56

The other thing I want to just point out is your journey did go. Oh, I’m going to stop working and take this on as full-time. Right, there is a path for everyone. That is somewhere in between. We’re not saying stop doing. If you’re a bookkeeper, if you’re, you know, whatever you do in the world, you don’t have to stop doing that to care about yourself. So I just want to make sure all of this is accessible, and it’s it’s.

Polly Mertens: 20:21

It’s just a few steps away from you, you know, yeah, yeah, and basically the reason I had to quit what I was doing. Of course I went back and was ending up doing a different job, but there was so much about that work environment and the commute and the lifestyle, lack of sleep that went with it, the alcohol, like there was so much about the lifestyle that went with that career path that was not serving me. I had to say no, I’m going to choose a different route. I might make less money, of course I did. I might not know what the hell I’m doing. I like it’s not going to be. This is transition is going to be hard but, um, I’m worth it and I took the risk. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty crazy.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:04

And the benefit is far exceeded. You know, oh, yeah, yeah. Could you imagine where you’d be if you continued on that path, like well, you’re gonna stay in this life and, you know, make some good money?

Polly Mertens: 21:14

unfortunately, I believed at that time, based on what I was experiencing mentally and physically, that I wouldn’t be here. But that’s what’s going to be the end of that, and I was on the beginning of the end towards that trajectory. Literally, you can’t get out of bed and you can’t function.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:29

It’s the beginning of the end towards that trajectory.

Polly Mertens: 21:30

Literally, you can’t get out of bed and you can’t function. It’s the beginning of the end, right? So I knew what that was going to look like and I chose no, got the wake-up call. So that’s how I found fitness, and I love fitness. I don’t love it every day. The workout I did today was horrible, by the way, it was very hard. It’s 100 degrees here. I’m doing a bike, run brick and 100 degrees, and I’m starting at six in the morning. It’s not like I’m starting at noon or something. It was challenging. However, I’m committed to it and I still enjoyed it, believe it or not, because that’s who I am at my core now. It’s part of what makes me tick mentally and physically, and the rewards are a thousandfold yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:20

You know two things I wanted to say on what you just shared is you know one? You know I can remember coaching people. Or when I first started the working out in the morning, you morning I shifted from an after work workout person into the morning Girl. I would not have said I was a morning person. I was, like I’m the farthest thing you know, rolled out of college. You know like, how many classes can I put into the afternoon? You know like, and then you’ve got this job.

Polly Mertens: 22:45

You had to go to parties in the nighttime.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:49

I would have said I was a night owl back then, right, but I shifted some things. I know there was a transition right To become this, like you said. It’s bumpy and messy and it’s whatever like to become a morning person, now self-proclaimed like I love being a morning person. I reprogrammed, redesigned my life. I found the benefit not in the beginning, but over time right and you, with exercise and fitness and finding those what works for you. The other thing I want so I’m just want to say like that little piece of work is, um, where the, wherever you are in your fitness journey, know that it there’s a transition to from where you’ve been to where you are. It’s going to be messy, you know, whatever, and then it gets better, right. So the other thing is something I’ve noticed and we’ve talked about this is you know, there’s some amazing female athletes and I’m not going to name them all because the list would be all day would be here, but to jump out at me, just that I’ve watched their journey recently at the Olympics were not that long ago, since we were recording this and, um, the summer was it? I think it was this summer, courtney. So, courtney doll water, if you don’t know this woman. Please look her up. Uh, if you want a little bit of like holy fuck.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:59

Inspiration, what this woman has done, she completed some very challenging long distance races, whatnot, and if you hear her talk, if you ever hear her interviewed, the girl has this the most big heart. She. She enjoys running like she does it. Yeah, it’s hard. She talks about digging a hole in the pain cave. She knows like it’s hard running. The kind of mileage and the speed with it she does is hard but she’s happy, which, like the overall thing is she’s found a love for the sport. Right, simone Biles who just, you know, just crushed it in the Olympics this year.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:35

Olympic gymnast, if you haven’t seen her, another amazing human being when I see her talk and her interviews, again, a love of what she’s doing. Does that girl spend a lot of freaking time in a leotard and jumping around and bouncing on, you know, all kinds of bars and things. Yes, it’s been a damn hard, dedicated journey, but she has such a big smile from her heart of what she’s doing and these women stand so far ahead of the people that are right behind them, let’s say, like the nearest person, man or woman you know, courtney has exceeded some men in the field right. And I would say, you know, I’ve watched documentaries of how, you know, courtney has out exceeded some men in the field Right. And I would say, you know, I’ve watched documentaries of how you know, in the eighties and nineties, when you and I were, let’s say, going through some sport or high school or whatever the days of you know, nadia Comaneci, where it was like it was like very militant and work hard and not enjoy it and starve yourself and you know all this stuff.

Samantha Pruitt: 25:28

So where these women are achieving things beyond what in that time period would have been even thought about. Because I think there’s this when it feels good for you or you can turn it into a passion that you can get on board with, maybe not every minute, but, like you, you’ve turned this work that you’re doing into. Yeah, it’s freaking hard, like 100 degree weather, but I’m loving the journey.

Polly Mertens: 25:51

Yeah, exactly Exactly. Courtney is definitely the best ultra runner of female ultra runner of all times, but she is overall. Yeah, these are legend athletes and when we think of fitness, you know they have decided to pick a sport and dedicate their life to becoming elite, professional and taking it as far as they can take it. When we talk about fitness, you know that’s one way of pursuing fitness and there’s so many different ways. I know your path was quite different than mine. I mean you actually played sports. I mean you were definitely raised, or not raised. You experienced in your journey into womanhood that athletics could be a normal part of it, correct?

Samantha Pruitt: 26:41

Yeah Well, I’ll just say a couple of things. So the amount of time my mom has spent in fitness is a big fat goose egg Like never. That woman would never claim to be or want to be in anything having to do with fitness, which just how I became so much in love with fitness. I don’t know, my dad was a tennis whatever, but that really didn’t at the time I was around in his life. There was no fitness. There was no, none of that. So it wasn’t an influence for my family by any means. I, I would. I’m, you know. I started my journey.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:19

So I played volleyball for 25 years, right, and it started at 14. And I can’t even remember how I found it. I was like, oh, like you were so clear, like, oh, you know, whatever. But I don’t remember the initial like did I see a sign at the gym like volleyball team tryouts or something I don’t even quite remember. But then it was like I found something I freaking love, like volleyball became my life. I mean, I play what other teams you know? Like it was everything to me for a long, long, long time. And then it’s not. And then I was like you know, and then I did a key part of your development.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:05

And so, if you think about these being on teams, I’m real succeeding and winning and enjoying each other and celebrating and losing and working out together and oh like, so if I ever had children, it’d be like you must pick some sport to try it.

Samantha Pruitt: 28:13

You know, like, yes, to get get that experience. Now, I do remember my intro to running. So this is a little bit, I think, of a funny story. So I was in college. So I remember in, oh, and there was a class in college where it was some sort of it was like a PE class or something like that. Right, and I love the gal who led the class, god bless her. She was amazing. You have to run a mile in 12 minutes. I had never run that far, not even close. Like I said, no fitness in my growing up or whatever, and volleyball there wasn’t, you know. So I was like, oh, I have to run a mile in 12 minutes. How far is a mile? Yeah, it’s four laps around the track. Yeah, exactly, yeah, it was like great. I remember that being so damn hard. Oh, so hard, painful, but brutal. Fast forward about miles yeah, fast forward.

Polly Mertens: 29:05

About two years later I was uh had a close friend who was into running.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:07

She used to like run around whatever. And I was, uh had a close friend who was into running. She used to like run around whatever. And I was like it’s really strange, you all, this room, you know, it just seems strange to me. I was like good for you, but okay, I’m not. And then she so we lived in the bay area, san francisco bay area, and there was a race that I’d heard about and she was like I’m gonna do this thing called uh, beta breakers. Okay, this was long, long time ago. This was not been around for very long, beta breakers. And I was like, oh, what is that? And she told me about it’s about 10 K and there’s live music and it’s really fun.

Polly Mertens: 29:43

And I was like I’ll do that.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:45

San Francisco. She’s like, oh yeah, we’re going to make little outfits and signs. I was like, oh yeah, wait a minute, that’s starting to sound exciting Costumes. I’m in you know me right. So the night before we had so much fun we were making little signs and costume, you know like a little. I think we made shirts. I think, yeah, I think we made shirts with our little team thing or whatever. There’s like three or four. Whatever I did that race for like 10 years. Whatever I did that race for like 10 years it was just a blast and that was my entree.

Samantha Pruitt: 30:14

And then I did another, you know, and the rest you know. I could go into the whole story, but but then that and then volleyball dimmed in my life right Running took more, you know, and, like you said, like other things, and I’ve evolved. We’ve done adventure races, a little bit of triathlon, and Spartan was a great, you know my forties, that was amazing.

Polly Mertens: 30:33

Exactly, exactly. So your fitness evolved like it should. Our life has seasons. I mean, even throughout the year my fitness changes. You know, I go to a CrossFit gym kind of part of the season and then I make sure I work on my foundational strength and mobility and then I get into whatever my race is of the season and then I make sure I work on my foundational strength and mobility and then I get into whatever my race is for the year. Not that I pendulum completely away and back and forth, but I integrate those things. But like it’s seasonal, I’m 55 now I am going to be doing things a little differently than I did at 35 or 25 or whatever you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:08

I just want to make a funny comment that I’ve only become aware of, like in the last, I would even say six months. Right, I’m just, you know, I’m in my fifties, like you, and I think about how many years and how much energy over the arc of my life, since I was a developing woman, you know, young girl and how important it seemed that I had a beach body or this thing that were sold kind of like a beach body, a bikini body or whatever, and a lot of the ways that I think they shame women into gym and fitness or whatever is like how do you look in the six pack, abs and all this stuff? Right, well, six pack, and how many years I’ve thought about it, been aware of it, not thinking about it, not caring about it, whatever. And I was like how many days of my life, the thousands of days of my life, have I been in a fucking bikini? I was like I think I could list it on, you know, my fingers and toes.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:07

I don’t live near the beach. I don don’t love the beach, you know. Whatever I was like and I spent how many years caring about how I looked in a bikini I was like, oh my God, exactly what a suck Right. And yeah. So the relationship to all of that now is like and you and I’ve talked about how it’s our feeling- right, exactly, exactly.

Polly Mertens: 32:29

Well, two things I want to say about that. I’m just laughing about the bikini thing, I’m sorry. It’s getting back in touch with how you feel in your body, which is the reoccurring theme of what we’re talking about. Right, it is like the individual body that you own, how it functions, how it maybe doesn’t function. You know how it can perform, how, how does it feel, rather than how it looks, all of those kind of things. But additionally, you know, if we think about trying to fit somebody else’s idea of how we should appear or how we should perform either one of those, it’s completely ludicrous, but yet that’s how we do spend a big bulk of our lives. So I think what we want to make sure we’re conveying today at the highest, highest level is it’s bullshit. And, as difficult as it might be to release it, you and I have done it.

Polly Mertens: 33:33

I look at this body now, this perfectly imperfect body, and I think, at age 55, how am I performing today? How am I performing? Am I able to athletically perform for my sport, to reach my fitness and race goals? Am I mentally and emotionally able to perform at my job, at this project that I love so much, in relationship with my community and my peers and my friends and family. How am I performing? And so those are the things that I’m investing in fitness for now. Like, that’s why I invest in fitness is I understand that these things are integrated and whatever the results are around, what this body is going to look like because of the things I’m doing is kind of just a side benefit. Oh, okay, well, you know, it looks pretty good because I’m taking pretty good care of it. I’ve got some guns right there because I’ve built those guns.

Polly Mertens: 34:34

You know what I mean. But I don’t obsess about how am I going to get the guns. It’s just like a.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:39

I don’t know.

Polly Mertens: 34:39

You know what I’m saying here.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:41

Yeah, you know, I have definitely had an up and down relationship with the shape of my body. Like I said, the bikini time or whatever, and like, oh, it’s the, you know it’s the start of the year, you got six months to get bikini ready, or they sell you, you know, on ads these days and stuff, and I’m just like so, like so yesterday I planted a tree in my backyard. I was telling you about it, so just want to pause it Because you’re also a farmer.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:10

Wow, yeah, I’m a gardener, homesteader, well, and the other thing that you know about me is I love newness. Like variety is my thing, right, and so I think I spoke about this in another episode I created a list of a hundred new things to do, right. I created a list of 100 new things to do right, and plant a tree is one of them, right. So yesterday I was like this tree is getting planted. Today I’m doing this. Right, I was in my backyard.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:33

I mean, it’s a little bit of a job to dig a hole in some hard-ass yard that isn’t ready for a tree and like make that happen, you know, I mean, and as I was doing it, like I literally the treat, I think, to you and another friend, I was like I feel like such a badass I’m. Like, so I wrote down, I was like power gardening can be a thing, right, yeah, because not, you know. So earlier that day I did my bands, right. So, like I, you know I go in and out of like is the gym where I want to be today, or do I want to be outside? There’s an outside little workout-y, gym-y thing that I can go to Do some different things over there that my local community has. You know me, I’ve got animal flow, I can do that in my backyard or I can do that on the floor here, right, totally, totally.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:18

So it’s like I have this relationship to an inner dialogue with myself of what, yeah, what do I, what am I like? So, on this weekend, after coming down from you know, kind of a regenerative weekend, you know it’s going to be pretty toasty here, and ordinarily I’m up the tallest mountain as fast as possible, you know, like charge up this mountain or whatever. And I checked in with myself. I’m like this is a regenerative weekend. Oh okay, what would, what kind of movement would I like to do? And I just went, you know what? I don’t want to charge up that mountain in the heat. No, that’s not what I want to do, oh, okay. Well, do you want to go on? There’s another little trail that’s a little more shaded, gentle. It’s still a nice little workout doing that. Great, you know. And do you want to run it? Or let’s see how it goes? You know, it was just like this dialogue where I wasn’t forced by something outside of me for what it needs to look like or how, like some mileage or whatever.

Samantha Pruitt: 37:15

Now there’s times when I was doing Ironman earlier this year training for half Ironman where it was very regimented, it was very prescriptive, right and, like you said, you had your heavy brick this morning and a hundred degree heat. You got to knock that out. It’s not always pretty or pleasant, but, and so there’s times when I definitely challenged myself and I actually just want to say like you can intersperse that into your life as well. You know exactly, we’re not all David Goggins. Nobody’s David, but David Goggins, which which is he’s a masochist when it comes to fitness and pushing your body and stuff like that.

Polly Mertens: 37:51

So yeah, I mean, there’s a time and a place if you’re into that, if you want that kind of challenge, but why, if it’s not important to you, why do that?

Samantha Pruitt: 38:02

That’s it Do other things and that’s exactly it, why? So ask yourself what you need in that season, in that cycle. Like some of you listening have little ones that you’re caretaking like day in and day out. You can’t go do three hours away from home, maybe you can’t whatever, but like it’s like that’s not what you need right now, in this season in the cycle that you’re in right. Like it’s like that’s not what you need right now, in this season, in the cycle that you’re in right, a 15 minute walk would be freaking miracle and religion for you, cause, like you get self care and space and do that Right.

Samantha Pruitt: 38:35

And so evaluate where you are, your relationship to your body yourself. What do you most need right now? Are you in a regenerative day or a week or a year Now? Are you in a regenerative day or week or year? Are you in a peak athletic, rising, expanding, elevating my level of fitness to see what kind of greatness I can achieve? I’m like you, I’m in 2.0. I want to see what this body can do. Or are you in you know what? I’m a little bit more in maintenance. I’ve got a lot of things going on in my life, but I want to maintain a level of well-being in my body so I can perform at work. I’m clear-headed and a sound mind in the things that I want to do. I can move up and down the stairs freely, you know, whatever those things are, it’s self-defining. It’s taking back your power of giving yourself permission to choose what you need right now.

Polly Mertens: 39:24

And what you’re saying is speaking to. One of the points I wanted to bring up is when you choose fitness as part of your lifestyle and everybody should, by the way, because they did come to the earth with a body Last time I checked, you were actually born and there’s a body attached. You and I have talked about people being detached from their bodies and not knowing what’s going on inside and what things feel like, etc. So when you get back into your body and you choose fitness to be part of your life, you can choose to learn about yourself along the way. So what you’re saying is checking in with yourself, asking yourself why, etc.

Polly Mertens: 40:04

I have really used fitness as a way to learn about who I am in the world. Like it is absolutely changed who I am in so many ways and it continues to every day. It surprises me, actually, and so in doing um, regular fitness as part of my lifestyle choices, I get to explore how this body works or sometimes doesn’t work, how it responds, how it does this. Hey, by the way, maybe I’m not good at that, but I could learn. Maybe I’m really good at things I had no idea.

Polly Mertens: 40:40

Maybe I’m capable of things which I’ve obviously proven this to myself and I continue to stretch this piece of me is like what am I actually capable of? What is my potential? I have no idea, and anyone listening to this really has no idea. Very few of us have scratched the surface even to understand what we are physically capable of doing. So you learn and you learn and you grow and you evolve and you explore. You and I have used fitness to go to different places. I’ve traveled around the freaking world with fitness that’s insane and met so many people of different types. Like it’s the enriching. What it has given back to me is incredible. So fitness has so many legs to it, you know as you were saying.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:30

I was thinking like a spectrum.

Samantha Pruitt: 41:32

Yeah you know it’s this spectrum, you know, and we get to choose at every phase of our life. Right, because you know, I think you and I would say we’re in better fitness now, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. You and I would say we’re in better fitness now mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, than we were 20, when we were in our 20s. Right, both of us right, absolutely, you know, because we chose to or whatnot, and that’s, and I’m not sitting here because I have quit a job and gone down this road and you know it’s part of my life. It’s not, you know, the career path, if you will.

Samantha Pruitt: 42:01

So there’s a spectrum and it’s about you being selective of, just like your snowflake, you beautiful snowflake you get to uniquely choose fitness that settles in with your life at this time. And, by gosh, what we’re wanting to say is it can serve you. It can only serve you if you let it, not if you hold it as a punishment against yourself. You know the discipline of fitness, the discipline of exercise. There is another way of doing this as a gift to yourself, as an opening, as a, like you said, of curiosity, as a finding and rediscovering more about yourself.

Polly Mertens: 42:43

Well, it’s funny you say it can serve you. It absolutely can serve you and it can serve all of those around you and your community and in coaching other humans, as a personal trainer, as a running coach, triathlon coach and now life business coach, also like in coaching others, a lot of times when I have the conversation which I always do around what their lifestyle looks like in the health and fitness realm so we can make sure they’re well-rounded, healthy people. A lot of people and I’m not just generalizing, but it seems to be motherly types, that they have responsibilities at home as well as work. They’re like I don’t know. Taking time for fitness seems like a selfish act and there are plenty of people, all different ages and sexes, that feel like carving out that time during the day to take care of their physical health is a selfish act. Can you even fathom?

Samantha Pruitt: 43:40

how irrational.

Polly Mertens: 43:42

That is irrational. That is, you have one body, you were given in this one lifetime, so is it selfish to carve out time to take care of your health and wellbeing at the cost of later in your lifetime. You will become a burden financially, socially, energetically to others because you will be physically, mentally, mentally or emotionally not well.

Samantha Pruitt: 44:09

You know I have never been a mother myself, but the only experience I can say is when I see moms put themselves last. Their kids are underserved by when a mom puts herself and her well being, you know, makes it a priority. It’s not every day, every moment a priority, like no, you can’t, you know, can’t take care of it whatever, but like she values herself more and enough to do this for herself a gift back to herself. The kids are better off as well.

Polly Mertens: 44:36

And parenting period. You’re a role model. Yeah, what? What you have to role model for these young humans you are bringing up. And even in the work that we do now and I know health, wellness and fitness are part of what we do here it’s how we all operate at a higher level. We expect great things from ourselves and each other. We’re doing great work in the world, so therefore we need to be at our best.

Samantha Pruitt: 45:23

So therefore we need to be at our best.

Polly Mertens: 45:24

And I mean it’s so fun to watch the transition with leadership in that way and see how they feel so much better. They’re energized, they’re empowered and really they’re like out crushing it at the gym and they send me pictures and tell me what they’re up to and then they talk about that with their team and they share that and they encourage their team also to do things that make them feel good physically. So that’s kind of a new thing in business too. That didn’t used to be. I mean it used to be hey, don’t leave that cubicle, right, don’t be walking around outside in the fresh air and getting some sunshine, right. And now it’s encouraged yeah, I mean in most environments that gives me hope.

Samantha Pruitt: 46:02

We know better now. We know better now, for sure, for sure.

Polly Mertens: 46:05

I want to talk about sweat therapy. So we’ve talked a lot about how it affects your mental and emotional well-being and there are many books and merit much science. You can Google any of this stuff, but you know some of my favorite books on it. I think I have a couple right here actually on my bookshelf. Brain Energy is a good one, okay, and that’s Christopher Palmer.

Polly Mertens: 46:29

The Joy of Movement, kelly McGonigal, built to Move by the Starrettes. Those are just kind of like books that are pretty popular right now or have been for several years that I’m a fan of. But in this space around how movement affects the physical body and ultimately the brain and the health of the brain, the actual health of the brain, so mental illness, but also lots of other brain diseases that manifest over people’s lifetime. The mitochondria within the system of the human body is where a lot of new science is going and it’s been around forever because humans have been around for a really long time. But the science is now proven how critical the health of the mitochondria in the human body is to the health of the brain. The only way you can strengthen their energy cells within the body and they do a lot of really complex things. The only way you can build them and strengthen them is through physical exercise.

Samantha Pruitt: 47:35

Is there a minimum? So help people understand like is that you know marathoning? Is that you know hot yoga? Is that you know riding their mountain bike for four hours? What? What is when you say strengthen them? Is there a minimum threshold? And average, just so people can get an idea of like what are we talking about here? Like what are the mitochondria need, or what’s helpful?

Polly Mertens: 47:55

Yeah, so they’re part of the metabolic system and they exist in your body already, but over time they age and they will become diseased or dysfunctional. Basically, based on everything that’s going on in your surroundings so your environment, what you’re putting in your mouth, how you’re experiencing this human experience a lot of things will impact their health or lack thereof. So they will literally, like cells in the body, do die. So over the course of your lifetime you will have less, or you could be in the business of building more, and not only building more, but building the density and the quality of the existing ones at a higher level. So there are dosages and nobody needs to go too crazy, doing extreme things in order to reap the benefits.

Polly Mertens: 48:46

I mean, honestly, there’s guidelines around this, but it’s very, very simple for people to be moving their body for well, in my never to be humble opinion, to be moving their body in some way, shape or form in order to reap these benefits. For 30 minutes a day Like these are the bare minimums to keep the health of the existing system. If you want to increase the amount and the volume and the quality of those cells, then there are definitely higher levels of exercise and it’s a variety of things, by the way. It isn’t one thing. It isn’t. Everybody should be out running. There are so many different ways to move this body and to build additional cells and to feed the health of the existing cells in the body and the brain. Pick something.

Samantha Pruitt: 49:33

Just start doing it. I vacuum my house and I break a sweat. Let’s go.

Polly Mertens: 49:38

And, honestly, I believe in variety. I mean, obviously I’m training for triathlon right now, which is a three sport, endurance sport. Training for triathlon right now, which is a three sport, endurance sport. So right away, it’s not one thing. But in my regular life and in your regular life beyond that, we like to do a variety of things. Again, our brain needs to be stimulated, we need to go to new places, we need to try new things. It’s how we will learn and evolve as a human being. But you know this, I want to keep driving back to this point of like. How we explore using our bodies. This fitness world is how we are learning, as a human being, to trust ourselves, to know ourselves, to see what is in our internal world.

Polly Mertens: 50:24

I was just having a coaching session this morning with a gal that did her first sprint triathlon and she just cracked wide open. She had a massive cracking open as a human being during this sprint triathlon. She had lots of challenges in training. She has two businesses, she has three kids, she has step kids, she, you name it.

Polly Mertens: 50:47

This woman has a lot going on in her life, but she chose to come back to her athletic self. She’s in her mid forties at this point as a way to self-invest in her wellness and her physical and emotional health, and so, by choosing a triathlon, she picked something that was big and a little scary and open water swimming and all these things, but it was so fun to talk to her about her journey during the race itself. I wasn’t able to be there and witness this. I wish I had been able to, but she was sharing with me her experience and how, by the time she worked through all of the difficulties of an open water swim was scary Getting on the bike with other people on strange roads, you know, and then going and attempting to run. It’s very difficult to run in a triathlon. By the time you get to the third sport, I mean, come on, you’re looking a little silly.

Polly Mertens: 51:38

You’re looking a little silly, it ain’t pretty. But anyway, she started crying. She started crying and basically she was by herself in her own head, thinking about things and basically just cracking open emotions, thoughts, experiences, just really just blown away at what she was doing for herself and nobody else didn’t care how fast, how slow, how ugly it was, whatever. So proud of herself and so like re in love with herself. And then she turned that cracking open and started to like express it out to the world. I mean, I’m telling you, this is what’s possible in fitness. It doesn’t always look like that. It’s going to be different for everybody.

Samantha Pruitt: 52:25

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 52:27

You know what I, what I I what I want to just share in context with you know, so you know a lot about somatic work, right, somatic being. You know your physiology, right? So the, the muscles, the tendons, the organs, that you know, all this stuff that’s a part of your body, right? And, yeah, me, and the hypnotherapy and my study of neuroscience and whatnot, it’s like your body is a representation of your emotional. You know, I think you have four bodies, you know, I’ve said this before emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, whatever, and they’re all, like, represented in your physical body, right? So the other thing I want to say is so the other thing I want to say is doing a. So you know, you know me, I’ve done, um, dozens, literally dozens, of transformation workshops where I’ll fly across the country for a week and I’ll put myself in some extreme shit and like, oh, yeah you know, and because?

Samantha Pruitt: 53:20

because those situations create massive growth. Right, I’ve learned that through. In a week, I can do like 10 years of therapy or something whatever, and you’re an efficiency expert. So that’s how you do it. I’m like boom, let’s get this done. People, I don’t have five years for this, I need some transformation now. But you know, when we do these things, it’s a triathlon.

Samantha Pruitt: 53:42

you know my journey on the Ironman journey and yours is you know we’re moving the physical body through processes, through one of my, you know, and what I’m saying is transfer. We put ourselves in these scenarios, whatever that is. Oh, I’m going to go take this yoga class, I’m going to, you know, sign up for this sprint Olympic try, whatever. I’m going to try a new walk, I’m going to hike a hill or whatever you know, play tennis with my partner, whatever. Yeah, there’s a journey in that of something you’re going to learn if you’re paying attention, right, If you, if you open up the doorway to let your body teach you, let your body also be a part of it, Not just like, oh, I’m going to mentally think about you know, I’ve got to get in shape, Like you, not just like, oh, I’m going to mentally think about you know, I’ve got to get in shape, like you were talking about, like I want to lose weight and whatever, the body’s just along for the ride. No, no, no, no. If you open up that doorway and that communication like she did, she put herself through these weeks, months of training goes to that event, it’s a gateway to her to, like you said and like you said, it’s not everything or whatever, but if you can allow yourself on the fitness journey, to open up the conversation with your body in whatever way, any of your body. So I’ll give you an example.

Samantha Pruitt: 54:57

I was in the swimming portion in a pool of my Ironman earlier this year and I can remember, you know, and I do these early morning 6am swims, you know, just kind of monotonous. It’s very kind of meditative. I mean, in the beginning it was clunky, but you know you get a little bit of routine. You get past that clunky, awkward, can’t breathe, can’t all that. So these damn goggles, whatever, Exactly Towards the end let’s say it that way towards the end of my growth, in that I kind of got in a little groove and it was just swimming, swimming, swimming.

Samantha Pruitt: 55:29

And I remember looking down in the pool and you know the lights and the water is pretty, how it kind of trickles on the underside of the pool, and you know I’m not really, you know I’m not there for anybody, it’s just me and whatever. And all of a sudden I just like kind kind of like her, like had this spiritual drop in from my future self. That was like so beautiful a message, like we’re so proud of you, like you’re doing this now. In 40 years you probably won’t be able to do this. Maybe you can, but you’re in it, like appreciate it, respected, and my heart just it was a whole nother level of that swimming pool. It was like what the hell? Like I just went there to swim that morning. You know, you never know, and somatic is such a part or access for us.

Polly Mertens: 56:18

So I believe that you gained access to that deeper self through the physical motion, to that deeper self through the physical motion, through and I’m a fan of endurance sports because there’s a lot of time invested in doing the physical motion and so, to me, I view it as a peeling back of the layers of the external and the artificial and the preconceived and the limiting beliefs and the societal things.

Polly Mertens: 56:45

Through the miles, if you will, or the hours or the minutes or whatever you’re doing, the swim strokes, you’re peeling back those layers that are no longer serving you until you get to the core of the actual you. I love, love, love, endurance sports for this reason and intentionally pick crazy ass things like that where you have to do something for a really long time, ideally moving through nature, because again you’re in a different space, it has a different energy to it. It really just cracks you open, peels back these layers to clearly release and connect you with your best self, which has nothing to do with how fast or slow you’re going, what the hell the swimsuit looks like on you, what the hell you’re wearing, what other people are thinking nothing, I mean, can you even think? I mean, to me it’s like the most incredibly valuable experience we can have as a human being is to get that access to be in touch with that self.

Samantha Pruitt: 57:54

You know, I hope we’re. You know we’re definitely. If I were listening to this, I’d be like that’s a pretty good sales job for some fitness. I’m not excited for some fitness, I’m excited for some fitness. I’m on persona for some fitness. I’m on persona for some fitness. And the other thing we’re going to talk in a future episode experiments in solitude, because that’s, I think, another layer of this, of where fitness is an access to all of yourselves, if you will.

Samantha Pruitt: 58:17

And so is solitude, because some of that swimming was very solitude. It was me and my mind and my whatever. I wasn’t having a conversation with anybody, I wasn’t checking out the car in front of me, traffic, you know whatever. It was like kind of a solitude moment, if you will.

Polly Mertens: 58:32

So what I want to talk about is what fitness isn’t real quick, because you made me think of something. I was on a long run this weekend and I shared with you all the many conversations Samantha had with Samantha. Sam and Sam were having a little chat for many, many hours. But what it isn’t is other people’s ideas about what our workout should look like. So and this is coming from a coach, and I was a personal trainer and a coach for many, many years Nobody else gets to decide what your workout should look like. So if you’re going to a class, a group fitness class, and that person is telling you how things should look and feel, take a moment to step back and get back, connected with the self, make that workout. You’re there for you. You’re not there to perform for the group or for that coach ever. Additionally, if you are a metrics freak and you are living by a watch that’s telling you your pace and it has to look like this or I have structured training programs and you had one for Ironman, right, like I don’t have to hit certain metrics and do this a certain way in order for this to be a good or a bad labeled by some external force workout or even by my own self limiting beliefs and crazy ideas. Right, a good workout is how did it feel? How did it feel? Did it feel good? Was I feeling good? Did I work through some things? What did I learn? You know, there was a growth in there. Was there some progress in there? Not, how fast was I Did it? You know, how did it compare to this person or that person? Like? All of those kinds of things, in my never to be humble opinion, are the death nail of fitness. They stop people from showing up the judgment and the competitiveness and the ideas around how things should be.

Polly Mertens: 1:00:31

This athlete I’ll just refer back to who did the sprint triathlon, of course she got off the bike and she couldn’t really run. Her legs were just hammered Right and she’s like, huh, what were just hammered Right? And she’s like huh, right. And so her whole mental game shifted like, oh my gosh, am I going to be able to finish this? I don’t think I can finish this Right. So she started, the evil twin showed up real fast and all that, and she had to work through that and transition her way back into moving at the pace she could comfortably move and breathe at and just moving forward. And if that meant some walking, it meant some walking.

Polly Mertens: 1:01:08

Who cares? Why are we doing these things? Who are we doing them for? You know, it’s so important to be connected to those whys. And we’re not there. Most of us are not going to be in the Olympics, we’re not going to be at the top of the podium. If that’s your goal, great, wonderful. But for the majority of us, we’re there to feel good in our lives and that just gives us a lot of freedom to do it. However, we want really.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:01:38

Yeah, I really think you know turning around into fitness can be fun. It must be fun. It must be fun. It can be free, you know it can be just whatever feels good to you, like you said, you know. So if 15 minutes of walking a day is max effort for you right now, check that.

Polly Mertens: 1:01:58

But like I am fucking loving my brother who is in cancer treatment, and you’re aware of that. You know I go visit him, we spend time and he can do one to two laps walking around his local park. This is my very fit, competitive, cyclist, studly, fit brother. But because he is currently under treatment, this is what his fitness looks like and he can’t do that every day at this moment. But that’s what he can do and so it’s taking whatever is real and using what’s available at that moment and what is reasonable and what you can accommodate. You know, maybe you don’t have the money to invest in a gym, maybe you can’t afford a bike or the sport of triathlon. Find what your thing is. Go to your local park. Remember the guy we saw when you and I were riding here together who was doing a full on beast mode Spartan workout in the park.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:02:56

On his own to himself. We were like that’s our. Who is he? This was New Year’s day. I was like, good God man, yeah, it’s New Year’s day. Who’s he? This was new year’s day. I was like, good god man, yeah, it’s new year’s day and he’s out there.

Polly Mertens: 1:03:10

We’re like, okay, you’re clearly oh yeah, I love, love, love. Okay, and one more thing I want to say before we start to wrap it up is on that note, everybody belongs here in fitness.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:03:22

The spectrum is wide and it’s for you to choose. The door is wide open of what fitness looks like, feels like, is for you.

Polly Mertens: 1:03:30

Everybody belongs there, like CrossFit isn’t just for the people who are already good at CrossFit. I mean everybody walked in the door not being able to do CrossFit because everybody learned it somehow right by going to CrossFit three times a week and then five times a week or whatever they did until they got good at CrossFit.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:03:50

Becoming a morning person was yeah. Yeah, I became a morning person, not by being a morning person the day before that, but I’ve started that path right, I didn’t even know how to swim when I started triathlon.

Polly Mertens: 1:04:02

Yeah, yeah, but I’ve started that path, right? I didn’t even know how to swim when I started triathlon, yeah, and I’m swimming 2.4 miles in the open water before I even get on the bike. What in the hell am I doing? But I literally didn’t even know how to swim. So what? Yeah, be willing to be brave because you’re doing it for yourself and just show up and be horrible at things and laugh a lot.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:04:27

And I would say, like one of the things I wanted to just insert today is like where am I at? Today is very different from where I was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and this turn, yes, zero. You know I was going to laugh with the story that you were telling about. You know, the Chubby Club and donuts and ho-hos after Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda. That just kills me just thinking about that. I can remember in my 20s, wherever this idea you know, this is kind of where my brain was in the state of what I understood about fitness and was being consuming at the time was go to the gym and get on the stairmaster for 30, stairmaster no. Or treadmill, or stairmaster, you know, cardio, it was all cardio. Or the ellipticals remember these?

Samantha Pruitt: 1:05:09

Yeah, elliptical cardio, stairmaster no rowing 30 minutes, get a good sweat on. I would walk past all of the weights. I was like that’s a guy thing. I was like, oh, this weightlifting thing, that’s for guys, you know, whatever. And and then I and so I do a workout and I go eat a bagel and a Jamba juice, which is like a big fruity chip, whatever, having no idea thought that that was healthy, a bagel and Jamba juice. I was like, oh yeah, I got my bagel and my Jamba juice. Totally upside down. All of that from what I have learned today. Right, so I just want. So that’s where I was in my twenties. Now it’s very different. I go right to all the weights, I go do anything.

Polly Mertens: 1:05:51

We love carbs. So let me just say we’re not carb shaming. They have a. They have a time and a place and we’re going to do a whole episode on food. So we’re not. We’re coming, but it’s the reality of back in the day I love to use that term back in the day. What’s that look like? What’s just different? Yeah right, because you were at the. You were at the, on ramp of becoming somebody who cared about health and fitness, so you had all your ideas that you know came with you in the backpack that you were dragging along Very slow by slow Consuming what was you know on the TV and other people, and not, like you did a wonderful deep dive into holistic studies and becoming a trainer and stuff like that.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:06:38

I didn’t go that route. It just was kind of a self-discovery. You know, running all these 10Ks and whatever, I wasn’t really getting fit, you know. It was fun. I was like, oh, I like these races, whatever kind of curious.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:06:50

Then I started to eventually get more like I wanted a challenge for myself and I was like, oh, I wonder if I could do a trail race. Oh, wow, you know. And then I did kind of poorly in one. I was like, what if I could do better the next one, right. And then I took second place in my age group, like, wow, I could do these trail races, things, if I, you know, learn about them, stuff, you know.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:07:08

And then the Spartan race was just kind of inspired by variety. I was like I’ve been running for so long. I was like, well, that’s different, you know, said, well, if you like Tough Mudder, you should try Spartan. This was back before. Spartan wasn’t like global or whatever. And I was like what the hell is that I’m doing that, you know? Like, yeah, like I’m doing that Right. And then, of course, off I go into that world for five, seven years, whatever like coming you know, winning, you know all that stuff, and there’s just, and then adventure races getting introduced to that, oh so reason that medals are so damn fun is not because I mean these are in my office.

Polly Mertens: 1:08:06

Yeah, each one of these represents a journey, a chapter. You’re talking about chapters of your life that make you who you are today, the building blocks of the Polly sitting in front of me, of the Sam in the mirror, those chapters, those experiences, those journeys, each one of those is represented in these experiences a commitment to self learning, evolving, trying, failing I mean failing fabulously, love. Failing are so incredibly invaluable I mean unreal.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:08:34

And I think one of the things that you and I have recognized that we share is a core value of well-being. I’ll call it well-being, Translate that to fitness, emotional health, whatever. So we have a core value. Obviously it’s in the name of our tagline how you feel in this body is important, so we invest in time and energy into that exploration. You know we’re not the richest people you know here to help you make the most amount of money, or, you know, get the best looking house on the block, or whatever it is, add to your purse or shoe collection.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:09:11

We’re not doing that, yeah yeah, and that’s all fine and great. I’m just saying I, you know, my wake up call was when I was at a Tony Robbins thing and he was like the foundation of your pyramid is health. And I was like really, what if I started looking at it that way, what would that look like? Foundation is health? And then I like had cycles of understanding how that, for me, was a hell. Yes, I was like that’s fucking. You know, there’s a beautiful line that I quote to people who lose their get off track and get into, you know, the hospital beds or whatever it’s like. You know, a man or woman, a man who has his health has many dreams. Man who doesn’t have his health has but one. Right, when we don’t have our health, all we want is our health. But when we have our health, we can have anything we want after that.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:10:02

Right and like, simplify that to. That’s. One of my foundational beliefs is I take good care of my body, my well-being, because everything else is accessible to me. You know this, when you don’t feel well or you get COVID or you get sick or something like that, a lot of the doors to access to things that you want to do get shut down, right. But if you’re feeling well, you’re feeling good in your body, I can plant a tree. Oh my God, I planted a tree for myself yesterday, like I was like I should go to the neighbor young man he can help me dig this out. And then I went what the hell?

Samantha Pruitt: 1:10:36

Like yeah, I could do that, but it’s a go you know it was hard digging you know I’m not saying everybody dig a tree, but like the amount of like like you said, she felt so good after running her race was like pounding on my own chest like girl. Yes, look at you, yes, I can plant a rose and I can plant a tree. And what else could I do? You know, I was like I’m gonna power garden this summer. What else can I do Exactly?

Polly Mertens: 1:10:58

exactly All of those building blocks go on into the rest of your world. We should probably wrap this thing up. What do we want to tell people? Huh?

Samantha Pruitt: 1:11:10

Well, what’s our one thing? What do you want to entertain them with? A question or something to leave them with? They had just one thing that they got out of this entire session today, and they’re listening.

Polly Mertens: 1:11:17

For me, the one thing, the most important thing. The one thing, the most important thing especially being a professional in the space for all this time and having my own personal journey and those two things being so linked is that it’s a building of you. I’m building me, the best version of myself, mentally, physically, emotionally. That’s fitness to me. Anyone listening is building them. Build their best selves, whatever that looks like, however they want to do it, whatever that feels like, for however long, et cetera, et cetera is their choice. Et cetera, et cetera is their choice, and we want to really empower them to choose that way the way to their best self.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:12:13

Yeah, and there’s no wrong way. There’s no wrong way, and allow it to evolve, allow it to be what it is right now could be different. You know your brother’s situation having some setbacks in his health. This is what it looks like right now, and then next month it could look different, and next week it could look different after that, and and so on and so on, and you define it. I love it. I love it. This has been so fun. Well, and I, you know, I know we’re going to talk about the food, because that’s like, like, probably people in the background, like okay yeah, fitness, exercise and stuff.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:12:39

What about the food? Okay, well, we’re going to be talking about that, so stay tuned, stay tuned, stay tuned. But what do we want to remind our beautiful humans about their lives that we always tell them as we wrap? She’s being playful. You guys can’t see her, but you can hear her going around.

Polly Mertens: 1:12:58

How your life feels is more important than how it looks. And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome and I important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome. And I’ll add one thing today oh, how your body feels is the most important and how it looks. You got what you got people, yeah, and it’s beautiful, it’s, it’s beautiful. It’s all beautiful, beautiful, all you, lady, love you. Have a good day, bye everybody.