107: Ask Amber Anything… About Motherhood

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 107.

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife, and mom of four.  Each week, my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

Questions about motherhood  0:48 

Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of biceps after babies radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke. And today we're doing another Ask Amber anything. So these are some of my favorite episodes because we put up a post and ask listeners, what do you want? Like what questions you want me to answer? And we typically do these around different topics. So we did it ask Amber anything about weightlifting, we did one where I did with my husband TJ, asking anything about macros. So we've done a couple of these, and they've always been really fun. And we thought it would be a fun idea to do an “Ask me anything about motherhood”. Because I'm a mom, if you didn't know, I'm a mom of four kids and that's a big part of who I am. It's a big part of why my brand is called biceps after babies. And when I started my company, it really was first and foremost in my mind that I wanted to help women understand and realize, that their fitness days didn't have to be behind them, that it didn't have to be, oh, I have had kids. And so you know, now I'm never gonna be able to be fit, or I'm never gonna be able to have abs or I'm never gonna be able to get strong. And I wanted women to realize that they could have biceps after babies, that their fitness days could be ahead of them regardless of if you're 20, 40, 70, 100 that there's always an ability to improve over time. And so motherhood is a really important part of me, it's a really important part of my story. It's a really important part of what makes me what I am and, and what makes my brand what I am. And so I thought it would be fun to see what questions that you guys had for me on motherhood, and we have some good ones. So um, I picked a couple to answer. And we're gonna go, we're gonna go through these individually.

How old are your kids?  2:40 

So the first question, which I thought was a great question to kick-off, was from Jules Querque. And she said, How old are your kids? So I have four children. I have one girl and three boys. And my girl is my oldest. So she's my firstborn. I'm a firstborn girl as well. So I'm the oldest of seven kids, and I'm a firstborn child. And my husband actually is a firstborn child as well. So two firstborns married each other. He's one of three. He has two other brothers. I'm one of seven. So two firstborns married each other and our firstborn is a girl and boy is she a lot like me. I don't know if it's firstborn. I don't know if it's the firstborn girl. But it's funny because I see a lot of me in my daughter, not only in the way she looks but her personality as well. So that's been kind of fun as she's gotten older. But my daughter is 13. And then I have three boys, and they're super fun. My husband comes from all boys. So he grew up with lots of brothers. I grew up with lots of brothers, too. There are four girls in my family and three boys. But he really does the boy thing. So he loves having a lot of boys, I love my boys as well. But they are different from my daughter. And my boys are 11, eight and six, I think there for a moment. So my kids are 13, 11, eight, and six.

A magical time in our kids growing up  4:02

And I really think we are really in the kind of like a twilight, magical time in our kids growing up. Because all my kids are potty trained, none of them take naps, they can all swim, they can all walk themselves. We don't have to, you know, carry a diaper bag anymore, or have a stroller. And yet my daughter is not old enough that like, we're not cool. So I know that she's going to get to that point where it's not cool to hang out with their family anymore. She wants to just ever do anything with her friends. Like I know, we're going to get to that point. Right now, like, it's still really cool for her to hang out with the family. And so I feel like we're just kind of in this really fun time. She doesn't have a job like she's not driving. And all of our kids are old enough to be able to do things. So we're really trying to enjoy this moment and do some, you know, fun family occasions and things go I know that it's gonna be over in the blink of an eye and as the kids continue to grow, it's like there are new exciting things that happen but it also is little sad as they get older and move on to, you know other things and school and things like that. Anyway, that was a really long answer to a really short question, but that is how old my kids are.

How do you have time for it all?  5:12

Okay. hp246 asked, How do you have time for it all? All the things, including quality time for you? And I think I'm not surprised that this question got asked because I think it's really easy to see somebody on social media and think that they do it all. But I think it's really important to find what all is, right, because nobody can do it all, right. That's literally we recognize that's literally impossible. And so what we've all done is we've defined what all is important to us. And what I have been really proud of, and I'm really intentional about is prioritizing what is important to me. And being intentional about that not letting life prioritize it for me, but being intentional about that prioritization. So I run a business, I have employees, we have a team, there's a team behind me, I pay them, right. So like, my business doesn't just help support my family, but it helps support other people's families as well. So I run a business. And I have four kids. And right now we're doing hybrid learning. So that means that they're at home. And so it has had to look a little different with them at home than it was when they were all going to school. I have a husband, and my relationship with him is really important. I'm an active member of my church, and, you know, fulfilling my church duties are really important to me as well. And so I think what is most important, you know, date night and keep the house clean like there are all of these things that are competing for our attention. But what I think is really important to understand is that you get to decide what's most important and place your attention on that. And I think that's the biggest takeaway, as I've gotten older, as I've had more on my plate, and as I've had to be more intentional is to choose what is of highest value to me, and what am I going to put my time and attention to, and that looks different at different points in my life.

Priorities change over time  7:09

So one of the questions I'm going to answer in just a little bit that was asked was about raising kids during medical school. But I will tell you that my life, while my husband was in medical school, and in residency, looks very different than my life now. I didn't have a business back then like I was in the throes of having small children. And so my life looked different back then. And what I prioritize back then is very different than what I prioritize now. So I don't do it all. I don't clean my house, we hire a housekeeper, or we have maids come to be able to help clean our house. My husband picks up a lot of slack around the house, especially when we are in busy times during the business. I hire people in my business, I don't do everything in my business. I hire people to do things for me, that's an important part of how I'm able to accomplish things.

I don’t do it all  8:02

So the moral of the story is I don't do it all. But I do prioritize what's important to me. And that's a really great question that you can and should be asking yourself, if you are feeling an incongruence, like if there's some resistance that comes up when you think about things that you “should be doing or want to be doing” and aren't, it's a really good opportunity to ask yourself the question like, how big of a priority is this to me? Because the real answer is, if it's a priority, you make time for it. Like if something is a priority, we make time for it. And if it's not a priority, then you can actually choose not to do it. And there doesn't have to be any guilt associated with that. So let me give you an example. Some of you feel like you should be making a home-cooked meal every night. I don't know, maybe some of you don't. But I'm sure there's somebody listening to this. And I'm just using an example like you feel like you should make home-cooked dinner at night. And if you're starting to feel guilt, or you know shame for not executing that the way that you “should ” or you know, think that you need to be doing, then you can ask yourself the question like, is that my highest value? And you're gonna get one of two answers like, yes, that is a high value. And if it's a high value, then you need to make time for it. And you will make time for it if it's a high value. And if it's not a high value, you don't have to feel guilt and shame about it. You can choose that it's not of high value and not put any time and effort into it. And so that's what I've done in a lot of areas of my life where I'm like, that's just not a priority to me today. It's not a priority to me right now to clean my own house and so I'm going to hire somebody to do that. It's not a priority to have a home-cooked meal every single night like I don't do a home-cooked meal every single night. And being in control of your life means prioritizing what's important. Making the things that are important happen, and recognizing that not everything can be important. And those things that aren't important letting them go.

How have macros helped you with your kids, and about coaching 10:09

Okay, this is a good one from Katie Higby. She said, What principles and habits have you developed through macros that have spilled over to influence your mothering? And this also relates to another question that I got from Kate Ron, she said, How have you applied your coaching tools in your role as a mother and with your children? So I think those are, they're kind of different questions, because one is saying, like, how have macros helped you with your kids, and the other one is specifically about coaching, but I'm gonna kind of speak to them in tandem because they have been in tandem.

Setting big goals 10:38

So one of the things that I talk about a lot is setting big goals. And if you haven't listened to episode number 94, on goal setting, it's one of my favorite ones. But I talk a lot about setting goals and how the purpose of setting goals is to help you grow. And a lot of times, sometimes we lose sight of that. And we think the purpose of setting a goal is to reach it. And I want you to consider that the purpose of setting a goal is to grow and that whether or not you reach the goal matters way less than who you become in the process of reaching for it. And so for me, that's where the mic macro counting. And the goals that I've set in the fitness area of my life, have spilled over into other areas of my life. Because when I set a big goal, like for example, in 2016, I set a goal to get a six-pack, I set a goal to get a 300-pound deadlift, I set a goal to be able to do bar muscle-ups. So I set a goal to be able to do a powerlifting competition, like these big goals that I set, the real value of them is who I've become in the process of reaching for them. And who you become in the process is who you bring into other areas of your life, including being a mother, or your job, or whatever. And so that has been one of the biggest things, and it's one of the things she's like, it's a secret. don't tell anybody. No, it's not really a secret. But one of the things that are so important with our vision, my vision, my vision for biceps after babies and the team is like bought into this vision is this idea that as we teach you things in fitness, as I help you set fitness goals and reach for them, that the person you become in the process will you will then bring to other areas of your life. Meaning the tools, you learn, the things you learn about yourself will cause you to be a better mother, they'll cause you'd be a better community member, they'll cause you to be a better employee or business owner. And that, to me, is what is important. And that's why what I always say is about fitness, but it's not about fitness. Because in the process of setting and reaching for goals, you become a new person, you uplevel yourself. And that goes into every aspect of your life. And so absolutely, have I become a better mother, as I've set and achieved goals? 110%. Have I learned how to work myself through challenging situations so that I can help my kids to transverse challenging situations? Absolutely.

Coaching 13:21

And then in relation to coaching, oh my gosh, the better coach that I've gotten to be the better mother I am. And I'd be lying if I said I don't use the coaching tools that I use with my clients on my kids all the freakin time. In fact, we have six coaches in Macros 101 and we always laugh because they tell me they're like, I take them through a coaching methodology. I teach them how to coach, we go through a whole process. And they walk away from that and they're like, man, I use these tools all the time in my mothering. And I'm like, Yes, it's me too. The tools that work in coaching clients are exactly the same tools that work in teaching my children and raising my children and essentially coaching my children through life, aren't they? Is that really what we are as moms we're like, coaches through life for like life coaches for our children. So yes, the ability that I've developed to coach clients definitely has translated over into my ability to mother and teach my children.

How do you coach your kids' past diet, cultural influences, and influences of advertising and media? 14:24

Okay, Tessa Claire had a really good question. She said, How do you coach your kids' past diet, culture influences, and influences of advertising and media? So I want to be clear because this word diet culture has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people. And so what one person says is diet culture is not what somebody else, there's no generally recognized term of like what this term means. So I'm going to tell you what diet culture means to me, and how that applies to how I'm teaching my children.

Diet culture 14:46

So to me, diet culture means feeling like your self worth is tied up around what you look like, that to me is diet culture, that like my self worth is tied up in what other people see when they look at me. And I couldn't think that that like, nothing is farther from the truth in my mind. And so that's what I think of is diet culture. And so advertising that is telling you that like your self worth is tied up in what you look like, your self worth is tied up in the size of your pants, your self worth is tied up in what weight you are, that to me is diet culture.

Approach goals that will empower you 15:31

Now, that is very different from the empowering position that you are in to be able to set a goal, even if it's an aesthetic goal and reach it, okay, those are different things. Because you can come to that goal. So this means the difference, you can set a goal and you can approach that goal in two different ways. You can approach that goal from I will be worthy when I will be happy when I will be confident when I hit that goal. Or you can approach that same goal from where I am worthy now, I am confident now, I love myself now and I want to reach that goal. Right? Do you see how those are different? Like the goals, the same, but how you approach the goal is 180 degrees different. And so I do not think diet culture is setting a fitness-related goal. I think it all depends on where you come from as you set that goal. And the thoughts you're telling yourself the things you're telling yourself as you're reaching for that goal.  Again, I believe in the power of setting a goal and that process of reaching for it changing you. So again, whether or not I hit a goal matters way less to me, than who I become in the process of reaching for it. And so it's the same thing in terms of fitness goals. So, to me, that's what diet culture is. That's my definition of it.

Caught not taught 16:55

So how do I instill that or teach that or model that to my children? And I think this is one of those things that is caught not taught. Meaning, my kids model me a whole lot more than me like sitting down and teaching them. And this was something that definitely reflected to me, from my experience growing up. And you may have a similar experience of like, how you felt and think about your body is related a lot to how your mom felt and thought about her body. Because that bleeds out into the way that you talk, it bleeds out into the conversations that you have, it bleeds out into the things that you bring up. And I know many of you listening, maybe have an experience where your mom was always on a diet, she was always talking about her body, she was always talking about how she, you know, needed to exercise because she ate bad or whatever. And those experiences have stuck with you, and have influenced what you think and feel about your body and what you think and feel about your worthiness. And so I think this is a great question because I know, as a mom, we're wanting to pass the best things on to our children, right? We always want better for our kids and we had for ourselves.

Self-worth and confidence that has to happen with you first 18:16

And in the realm of body image and self-worth and confidence that has to happen with you first. Because you can talk to your kids about it as much as you want. But if you're not emulating it for them, then it's not going to make as big of a difference. And so I think one of the best things that a mom can do, to pass on a healthy relationship with food, to pass on a healthy body image, to pass on a feeling of self-worth, that's not tied to what you look like, is for you to get there first. Now, that doesn't mean if you're not quite there yet that like, Oh, you know, we just have to give up right? Like it's, you're just out of luck. But I think we can start to recognize that and you can start to work on that in yourself. And how valuable it will be if you can work on that on yourself and be able to pass that along to your kids. And for a lot of moms that is one of the big motivating factors in increasing change in themselves is because they know that they're passing habits and thoughts and beliefs onto their kids and they don't want their kids to have the same thoughts and beliefs that were passed on to them. And so if you're listening to this and you currently struggle that's okay. It's okay. You have a match with your kids up. Like it's not like there's always progress that can be made and you can always make the future better than the past. But when you start to recognize that and you start to address it and address the root cause then you're able to pass those habits and ways of being on to your children, which I think is one of the most exciting and maybe scary things of being a mom is having that responsibility to pass those things on to your kids.

How would you help a child under 10 deal with negative self-talk? 20:14

Okay, this next one is from Aubrey Werner. And she said, how would you help a child under 10 deal with negative self-talk? So one of the things with negative self-talk now, okay, let me couch this a little bit. Children come to the earth, with personalities. And if you've been around enough kids for long enough, and seen enough parents, you start to recognize that yes, there's absolute power in like good parenting, there's absolute power in raising your kids a certain way. But at the end of the day, I think it's really important to understand that kids come with personality, there is some like nature involved in your child. And so I think it's really important to not necessarily wrap our self-worth up in how our children turn out. Because that can be really damaging to like, wrap your self worth in, like, if my kid succeeds, that means I was a good mom. And if they don't, then that means I was a bad mom. And I think it's really easy as we talked about. And I even just just related how our children catch what we do rather than like more of it is caught than taught. But at the same time, like, you can't necessarily blame your child's choices on yourself.

Assess your self-talk 21:29

So the first question I would be asking myself is, how do I talk to myself? Right? If I'm noticing that my child has negative self-talk, how do I talk to myself? And if I'm trying to, like assist my child and having more positive self-talk, am I coming from a place that like, I've already figured that out in my own life? Or is that something that I need to figure out in my own life first, right? Because you can't really teach somebody to have positive self talk, if you yourself aren't quite there, which is where we go back to this idea that if you're struggling with something like, that's fine, like, but work on it, like work on yourself before you expect to be able to, like support or help your child through it. So that's a really good place to start. It's like, what is your self talk?

Model positive self-talk for them 22:10

And if you can do a little introspection, and realize that maybe your self-talk needs a little improvement, and you can focus on that, or maybe you're like, yeah, my self-talk is really good but for some reason, my child came with this personality where their default is like negative, or it's negative self-talk. And if that's the case, then I think you can start to model that for them. And so our inner self-talk comes from our experiences with other people. It comes from, like what we have been told, in our lives, our beliefs are formulated around what we've been told over and over again, experiences that we've had over and over again. And so what you can do for your child is you can start to model that positive self-talk. And I do this a lot in coaching, that the understanding that there is always a different perspective. And so a lot of times, we're looking at life, and we're labeling something problem, problem, problem, problem. awful, awful, awful, bad, bad, bad, right? And what we can do for our children, is we can model changing that perspective. Instead of it being a problem, how is this an opportunity, instead of this being bad, how could this be a benefit for us, right, and so what you can start to model is model that perspective shift when that negative perspective comes up. If there is a negative perspective, there has to be a positive perspective, like, that's just how the world works. It's, there is a duality and everything in the world.  The law of duality, if there is a negative perspective, there has to be a positive perspective. And what you can do is you can start to model that positive perspective for your child. So when they come up, and they say something negative, you can model what it looks like to take that into look at the positive side. And the more that you do that, and the more experience that your child has with that, that will translate into their inner self-talk. Now, you can't be in your kid's head. But what is in your kid's head will be reflected in how they are speaking, and what they are doing. And so you'll start to see how that is shifting over time as you see how the language that they use. What they default to when they look at a situation, do they default to the negative, or do they default to the positive, and that can be a powerful way to approach that.

How to raise children while a husband is in medical school and any advice? 24:28

Okay, Annika Shumway said she's anxious about raising children while her husband is in medical school and any advice. So though, for those of you don't know my story, I graduated with my degree in nursing. My husband graduated with his degree in neuroscience, and he then ended up going to medical school. He spent four years in medical school at that time, at which time I worked as a nurse. And then he spent four years in residency and three years in fellowship and now we're finally done with training 11 years later, and he's been out of training now for three years. So we're post-training, but it's a long road. And for any of you who have been through medical school or dental school or know somebody who has like you know that it is a long road, and it's not an easy road, there are challenges. There are great things about the path. But there are challenges at every single step of the journey. And we had our first child, at the end of our first year of medical school, we had our second child at the end of our fourth year of medical school, or the middle of our fourth year, we had our third child in the middle of the second year of residency and our fourth child in the middle of our fourth year of residency. So we had two children while we were in medical school, and we had two other children while we were in residency. So I very much know what it's like to have children during that time when it's crazy. And my husband was working a lot, he was at school a lot. And then he was working on residency. And it's tough, like, I'm not gonna say it's not. But I also think raising kids at any point is always tough. Like, I don't think there's a perfect time to have children. And I'm seeing some of my husband's co-workers who are just now starting to have children, now post-training, and it's hard for them too, right like their post-training and it's still hard, right?

Am I ready to commit to that process? 26:19

Every stage of your life is going to have the pluses and the minuses. And for us, the positives of starting our family early of having our kids while we were young, outweighed the fact that my husband was really busy. And we were really poor. You're really poor when you're going through medical school, and you're like $300,000 in debt. But the fact of having our family early, of not delaying that, of being able to be young parents to us outweighed the hard parts of him being really busy, us being really poor, us moving around a lot. That was another thing. We moved around a lot during our training. But that was such a blessing in the same way for our children to experience and to move to new places, and to get to have that experience of living in lots of different areas of the country, meeting lots of different people. So there's a lot of beautiful things about having kids during that journey. Was it hard? Yeah. Like it's hard. But again, I don't necessarily know that like, it's never easy. And so I think, a better question to ask yourself or a, you know, a better question than like, Is it hard to have kids in medical school? a better question to ask is like when you know, when do I want to have kids? When am I ready to commit to that process, because it is a process. We're still going through it, we're still raising our kids. And that answer may be different for you than it was for us. But for us, we wanted to be young parents, we wanted to raise our kids while we were young. And we wanted to be able to be in our 50s and like, have the kids out of the house, and be able to continue on with that part of our life. So for us, it made sense.

Release expectations 28:06

And I think one of the biggest pieces of advice I would give you, and this can be related to a lot of people, but specifically for my women listening who are spouses of doctors, med students, dental students, law students, like any of those is one of the things that helped me the most during the journey was to release all expectations. I found if I set expectations, especially for like when my husband was going to be home, like expecting him to be home for dinner or expected him to be home for Christmas when we're in residency. Like when I had those expectations, then I was like just setting myself up for disappointment. Because inevitably, you'd be late. And actually, he wouldn't be home that weekend, or whatever. And so I just decided that my husband wasn't ever going to be around. If he wasn't going to be home for dinner, he wasn't going to be there on Christmas, he wasn't going to be there for any of these things. And so when he was I was elated, like I was excited, instead of feeling disappointed when my expectations weren't met. So for me, now this is just for me, that was something that was very valuable to me as I just released expectations as to what it was going to look like I just decided I was going to go to church by myself all the time. I was going to do all my errands by myself like that I was essentially going to do everything by myself. And when he showed up and I was excited and elated to have him there instead of disappointed and grumpy at him because there were nights that he would like I really remember, I think it was the second year, there were nights where he would come home at like 10 or 11 o'clock at night the kids were already in bed, and then he would leave at 5 am the next morning and the kids would go like three-four days without seeing him. That is the life of a resident my friends are not fun. But we did make it through it and life is a whole lot better now.

How do you talk to your kids about the moderation of sweets? 29:49

Okay, Renee Paul said how do you talk to your kids about moderation of sweets, so this is good. A lot of what I talked to my kids about is literally what I teach and literally how I talk about food to my clients. In fact, there isn't good and bad food there. It's just food, right? There's not good food, it's not bad food, it's just-food. And it has certain macros. In fact, it's so funny, my son was just on a, I think it was in PE. And his PE teacher was talking about food. And she was going on and on and on about how bad fat is for you. And my son just finally, like, muted it. And he's like, I can't even listen to this anymore. He's like, so we had a conversation. We're like how fat isn't bad like fat is essential for you, you have to have fat to be able to produce hormones. And like it's an essential component in your nutrition. So we had a conversation, but he had already learned enough from me, and from our conversations around food that he heard that and he was like, this is ridiculous. Like fat isn't bad. And he was able to shut it off. Now what makes me sad is the number of children that were listening to that and are like starting to internalize that from a young age of hearing that carbs are bad, or fat is bad, or sugar is bad. That makes me sad. But it's why you are their parents, and you're going to help to correct that and help them to understand.

Educating our kids about food 31:10

So I just had a conversation in the car the other day with my daughter about the same thing, about how there aren't any bad foods out there, just our foods. My kids understand macros, they understand macronutrients. They don't count macros, but they understand that there are different things that their body needs. And they understand that you know, certain foods have more protein, and certain foods have more carbs, and you need a combination of all of them. And so, like a lot of the other stuff we've talked about today, a lot of that is caught. It's because I talked to them about it, it's because they know, I have conversations about making sure you're eating enough protein. And we have conversations about why some people weigh their food sometimes or when my husband and I have been tracking in the past, like why we're weighing our foods. Coming from this place it's not about restriction, it's about making sure that we're getting enough that we're fueling our bodies, effectively.

Modeling moderation 32:02

Our kids see us go to the gym, they see us eat sweets like I treat we go out to celebrate, and we eat ice cream like we eat those things with them. And so they see us modeling that moderation. And they do use what they eat, they model what they see. And so my daughter has gotten to the point where she now is eating like a lot more vegetables, which is really fun. We don't push veggies on our kids. So like every dinner, we always have vegetables available. And we usually will dish it up onto their plate, but they don't have to eat it. We just say two bites, no fights, but they don't have to eat the vegetables if they don't want to. But it's always there. It's always available. And it's been really fun. Because recently, my 13-year-old daughter has taken those vegetables now more often than not. Like she's starting to become aware and just want to like, you know, eat the vegetables because she knows that they're healthy. And it's been fun because it hasn't been anything that we've had to throw down her throat but they're available and they're there. And she understands you know that they helped to make her body healthy. And then at the same time, we make cookies, and we eat those cookies. So to me, what you are modeling to your kids is the most important and so if you're modeling moderation, my kids see me eat a salad. And they also see me eat a doughnut. My kids see me eat lasagna. They see me eat carbs, they see me eat fat. And then they see me have you know, a bunch of veggies with my dinner as well. So that is how we've taught moderation to our children is by modeling it for them, by showing them what moderation can look like.

We don't ban anything in our house 33:39

And we don't ban anything in our house. We're not like, you know, you'll never hear me say no you can't have that sweet, you've had too many sweets. Instead, we're like, yeah, you can totally have that. What do you eat an apple first, and then you can finish that cookie. In fact, that's funny. This morning, I went downstairs, actually, I came home from CrossFit. My son had a cookie in one hand and another cookie in the other and he was like at one of the cookies. And I was like have you eaten breakfast? And he said no. He's like, this is what I'm eating for breakfast. And I said, Okay, awesome. Like, let's grab a plate and you could put that cookie on the plate. Let's have some breakfast and then you can finish that cookie afterward. So he ate the cookie. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But he's starting to learn that like yeah, we can eat cookies, they're not bad, but we need to make sure that we're fueling our body effectively as well.

What is your greatest mom's win? 34:31

Okay, this is the last one that I'll do and this one was from Katie Higby as well. And I love it she said what is your greatest mom win? And so I kind of thought about this. And I tried to think about what I think is my greatest mom win and I don't know if this is my greatest but it is something that I am proud of and that I hope my kids look back on and were inspired by and that is building my business in like at home around them. They've seen me set goals and reach for them, and be able to build something that's bigger than myself.  I am incredibly proud that I am showing my kids that I can be a mom and I can be a person. That I can have goals and ambitions, and do big things, and be a really awesome mom for them, and be there for them. And that it doesn't have to be an either-or, and I think for in a lot of women's minds isn't either-or, either I can be a good mom, or, and I can be, I can build a business. And I think a lot of times, it's like either one of those can happen, but the gamble will happen. And I believe that I'm modeling for my children that I can be a mom and I can run a business. And I can set goals and I can reach for things and develop myself and develop my talents over time. And that's always what I want for my kids, I want my kids to be able to create whatever life they want to create, I want them to feel the power that they have inside of them to achieve whatever it is that they want to achieve. And I'm really proud that I'm able to model that for my kids, that they're able to see their mom build something that they're able to see their mom work, that they're able to see their moms celebrate hitting goals, and that they're able to witness that and model that in their own life. So I don't know if that's necessarily like a parenting win or like a specific moment. But I am really proud of that. I'm proud to be able to model that for my kids. And that's not to say that if you don't model that, but that's bad or anything, but for me, that's something that I'm very proud of that I can't have and can do both. And that especially for my daughter that I can show her that she has talents and that if she wants to use those talents and grow that she can in any way that she wants to do and so that's something that I am really really proud of.

Okay, so hopefully this was fun. We got into a little bit more personal stuff, got to know me maybe. I'm a little bit more personal level and how I am a mom and a business owner and a coach and all the things. This was fun for me so hopefully, it was fun for you as well. That wraps up this episode of biceps after babies radio. I'm Amber, now go out and be strong because remember my friend you can do anything.

Outro

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