213: Believing In Herself As A Single Mom Of Five With Diamantina Lopez [“I Did It” Series]

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio episode number 213.

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.

 

Amber B  0:47  

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another Friday episode of Biceps After Babies, I'm your host Amber Brueseke. And this is a continuation of the “I Did It” Series which means we have a another amazing episode of a story of a woman and her lessons, her struggles. And, you know, this understanding that as we hear other women's stories, there are always lessons for us to be learning ourselves. And that's really why we bring you a story every single Friday, so that you are hearing from other women, feeling community, feeling not alone. Because I guarantee there's someone else out there who is going through a very similar thing. And I think we can unite as women in the hard things and in the good things and in the successes and the failures that only develops us as stronger, more resilient women. 

 

Amber B  1:38

So today I'm sharing the story of Diamantina, and she is a single mom of five. And her kids range from age two all the way to age 18. And she's, you know, gone through some rough stuff in the past, including a divorce, that wasn't super awesome. And, you know, really trying to raise these five kids on her own and also take care of herself. So in this episode, Tina talks about what she's learned about herself, and what she's learned and this realization she had about believing in herself. And I'm not gonna spoil it because it's so good, this aha moment that she had. But if you are someone who struggles to believe in yourself, and to believe in your success, and to believe in your results, and to believe that you can improve and be better and achieve, I want you to listen to what Tina has figured out and the aha moment that she had later on in the episode. So without further ado, let's jump into the interview. 

 

Amber B  2:46 

I am so excited to welcome Diamantina to the podcast. How are you doing?

 

Diamantina  2:52  

I'm doing good.

 

Amber B  2:53  

I'm really excited to talk with you. Because you're kind of a super, super mom. You are a single mom of five kids and you have kids all the way from 2 to 18. So that's a pretty wide range and you're doing it alone. So I mean, hail to the supermom. But I'm really excited for people to get to know you and a little bit about your story and we're definitely gonna talk about how that's been unique in your situation. So let's start out with just giving people a little bit of background about you and a little bit about your journey and you know, maybe some of the struggles that you had leading up to joining MACROS 101.

 

Diamantina  3:32  

Okay, well, before MACROS 101, I was just in a dark place mentally with myself. I had gone through a difficult divorce where I was abandoned by the father of my child and I found myself depressed. I found myself just really in a negative mindset. And the way I overcame that was through counseling and my faith and God. So the healing came by doing the inner healing, by doing the work with the counselor, and then once I started dealing with that issue, it was like, “Okay, now it's time for me to start taking care of myself.” And I had five babies, and after having five kids I had always ate healthy, I always, I lost the weight, a lot of the weight with my daughter eight years ago. So I got really healthy then by doing a lot of cardio and eating healthy, just making changes. But when I found myself in that marriage, I lost myself. So when I came out of that, I had put on all this weight all over again. So I knew it was time for me to start taking care of me. And I started with the 75 HARD challenge, which was rules, rules, rules. 

 

Amber B  5:55  

Yeah. A couple more rules were thrown in.

 

Diamontina  6:00  

Yeah. So when I stopped that, [before] I did no bread no sugar. And I love bread and sugar.. So all the way came back, and then some. And then I was working out and so it was it looked like up and down a lot. So when I found you, I found you through a comment on a Facebook group that, had I not looked at that comment, like at that thread on Facebook, I would have missed the whole Biceps After Babies. Like I really felt like that was God putting you right there in front of me. So I looked you up on Instagram and found it and had followed you. I'm self-employed so I spent a lot of time by myself and so I listened to a lot of podcasts, and I liked everything that you were sharing. So I was one of the ones that waited to like, right at the end-

 

Amber B  7:15  

The last minute?

 

Diamantina  7:17  

Because that was a long line, the amount of money for I was like, I called my best friend. And I'm like, this is what I'm thinking about doing. I just need somebody to be like, it's okay Tina for you to spend this money on you. 

 

Amber B  7:35  

Yeah, on yourself. 

 

Diamantina  7:37  

And so I did. Im new to the program, it's been like four weeks or wherever we're at now. I'm taking it at my own pace. At first, I was like, falling behind blah, blah, blah. Like all the voices. I'm like, behind who? Behind what? Time is yours, take your time. So anyway, I don't know. 

 

Amber B  8:08  

It's awesome. So good. Okay, there's so much to dive into here. One of the things that I wanted to point out that I thought was so smart of you, is I heard you say that you focus on your mental health and like going and working through with a counselor first and then you focused on your physical health. And I want to point that out, because I think sometimes we do it the other way around, where we think, Oh, if I just fix my body, like that'll fix the brokenness that I feel or the mental health problems that I'm having. And I love that you realize that, like you needed to take care of the mental side of things like that part of you, and then you are going to be in such a better position to start working on that physical aspect. And so I love that you shared that, because I want to echo that of saying, you know, taking care of the inside is like, yes, I want to help you lose weight, I want to help you like have this physical transformation, but we got to take care of like you as a person as an individual. You're then you're going to be able to better take care of yourself physically. So I thought that was so important. 

 

Amber B  9:15 

You know, all of us have our own personal struggles with life, right? And you're a single mom went through a hard divorce five kids at home and you run your own business. And you know, there's a lot of unique challenges that come with that set of life happening to you. So especially when it comes to health and fitness and time and finding the energy to be able to put effort into yourself. So can you talk to us about some of the unique struggles that maybe you feel like you experienced as a single mom, and specifically how you overcome them. So for the single moms or the people who feel like they're in motherhood right now and they're having a hard time taking care of themselves and taking care of their kids, what are some, you know, pieces of advice that you could give to someone listening right now?

 

Diamantina  10:07  

That you really have to make time for yourself to put first. It's like that you don't put the mask on yourself, you're helpless to the children around you. And it's been worked for me because I lost myself. And the marriage that I was in, to the point where I didn't even know who I was, or what my purpose was even with my children. So now my children see me, and I take time for me, I make it a priority to work out. And it's not like an I have to but I get to. I get to take care of my body, I get to work out. And my children get to see the benefit of that. So yeah, just making and there's so many excuses, that for a single mom could come up, and they're, I mean, they're legit, it's you –

 

Amber B  11:28  

– they're valid

 

Diamantina  11:29  

-they don't have time, you know, we don't take the time. And for me, that was it like, my excuse was I'm not a morning person, I can't work out and I can't wake up at five o'clock in the morning. For the last two to three months, I've been finding that I love working out at five o'clock in the morning, then I get it's the best start of the day for me. Because I get the whole morning to myself and where it's not so rushed. And I'm having to rush home to work out. Because that's what I was doing before. So I played around with the five o'clock workout or eight o'clock workout. And I love waking up and putting my shoes on and just walking into my living room and working out. I mean, take the time for yourself. Your children are watching you. And what? You know, we're an example to them on how to take care of ourselves.

 

Amber B  12:44  

Yeah, and I want to point out something because I think you're right, I think society has given mothers this impression that like, the best mother is the one who like sacrifices everything for her children. And so we come from this paradigm of like, well, the more I sacrifice for my children more I do from them. And it's and it's never about you, it always needs to be about your kids. And that's the best form of motherhood. And, you know, I take real offense to that of thinking that we're expected to pour from an empty cup, like, we know that you can't pour from an empty cup. And I think even just the decision that you made and right, you'd have to call your friend and like, kind of talk yourself through it. But even the decision that you made of saying, “No, I'm going to invest this money in something that is just it's for me, like, and I'm worth it. And the more that I invest in important to myself, the more I can pour into these children who I love dearly, but I have to fill my cup up before I can fill their cup up.” And you know, that was that decision that you made of like, Yeah, I'm going to do this for myself. 

 

Amber B  13:48 

So valuable. The other thing that I heard, that I really love is that you challenged the assumptions that you had made, like this assumption, this belief that you had, but like, I'm not a morning person. And I think sometimes we have these ideas of like, I'm this type of person, or I'm this type of person, or I'm always doing well with this, or I'd never do well with this. And I love this idea of challenging those assumptions and seeing if they're true. And so that's what you did, like you tried it out like “I think I'm not a morning person, but let's test it out.” And maybe you aren't, maybe you would have maybe you found out that you aren't a morning person. But you found out that you actually there's a lot of things that you love about it. And I think the more that we can just challenge those initial assumptions that we make about ourselves and what we're capable of and what we have time for and all of these things and really just say, is that really true? Is that really true? And maybe open yourself to maybe I am a boring person, maybe I could be a morning person. And it's such a valuable place to be able to work from so. So, so really good. 

 

Amber B  14:52 

So you mentioned to me, that you know something about starting to believe in yourself and how that's made a difference in your journey. And I think for a lot of women listening, they may be on that precipice of like wanting to believe in themselves, but not actually believing in themselves and the results that they want to create. So will you talk to us a little bit about what that journey of believing in yourself has looked like for you?

 

Diamantina  15:20  

Yeah, I want to go back to the Big Why that you've just asked ourselves. And, you know, when I was in the middle of that module, and asking myself, like, why am I doing this? Because I really thought it was just to look better. Like, I have this thing of, when I hit 40, I don't want to look like I'm 40. But then, as I dug deeper, what came out, I was in the middle of working out, and I was doing like a one o'clock, like a 1pm. It was the last day I ever did a workout at 1pm. And as I'm working out, like my mind is just going, and I'm like all these negative voices are just coming at me that that question was running through my mind, why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? And I said out loud shut up. I'm doing this for me, because for so long, nobody believed in me. My dad didn't believe in me. My sisters didn't believe in me, my friends around me when I was little didn't believe in me. I believe in me, I don't need anybody's validation on to what goals I can achieve. If I know that I can meet those goals. That's all the validation that I need is me believing in me and me believing that God is with me. And then I'm going to succeed because He's with me, He has me and He has my children. So that was the day that that was revealed to me. Like, I didn't believe in myself for years because nobody else believed in me. Nobody else had my back. And I was like, homegirl, you have your own back by telling you, you can do this.

 

Amber B  17:54  

And God has your back, right. Like, it's like, you have your back and God has your back.

 

Diamantina  17:59  

Yeah. So and I think I was pushing myself like to lift more because I was doing like a dumbbell workout to lift like 30-pound dumbbells in each hand, which is 60 pounds. So I'm like, I believe me. That was, Yeah, like I don't… I have goals. I'm so excited about these goals that I have, that are going to financially help my children and I'm like I can do this, like Tina, you can do this. You can dream big and accomplish that. So that has really been like an eye opener for me. The fact that I don't need anybody to believe in me. I believe in me.

 

Amber B  18:56  

Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. How has your health and fitness journey impacted your kids? Because one of the things that I hear a lot of women talking about is like one of the reasons that they go through this process is because they want to be an example to their kids. They want to be with their kids, right? They want to be healthy for their kids. And I think there are a lot of lessons that our kids can learn as we're working on ourselves and putting our effort and time into something that's important to us but I'm curious in your journey, how have you seen your health and fitness journey impact your children?

 

Diamantina  19:33  

Eight years ago when I made the changes that I did with my family, like we went from eating all the junk food to eating organic so my kids like remember that. So my kids have, I've always done the healthier foods with them and everything. So they have that down and they're all pretty active. But they see the change in me where I'm more consistent now. They see the change in me where I'm happier now where I'm not I can't have the piece of cake with them because I can't eat forever sugar hop on the whole 30 or I'm hard challenge or whatever it is. But they see that change where I'm happier now, and I'm doing this for me. And I have two girls, three boys. And I just want them to remember me as like, a strong mom, not just physically strong, but like, Mom had goals, and she did them and we overcame. I tell them some, I tried to instill this into them, like we're not victims of our circumstances. And out of just instilling that in them, like last year, when all of that happened, as I started a single mom ministry in our church, and Victorious was born out of me constantly just telling my kids like, we're not victims of our circumstances. So I started a group for single moms called Victorious. And I just want my kids to see it wasn't just the health journey part of it, like, it was my mental health change, too. And because I took care of that I was able to take care of this part and it's all connected. 

 

Amber B  22:05  

It's all connected. Yeah, so good. Oh, this has been so amazing. Thank you so much for coming on, and sharing your story, sharing your wisdom. And I just, I get so excited. One of the reasons that I love working with women is because I feel like women have such far reaching impact in so many spheres. And you know, I think about you and your five kids, and how you making changes and you taking care of yourself and you focusing on your mental health and your physical health is having such a ripple effect on to now five human beings on this planet. And I just think it's so powerful to remember the power that we have as women, as moms, as people who have spheres of influence that when you make a change, it doesn't only impact you, but it has like this ripple effect of impacting other people's lives. And that's what I see with you is the ripple impact that you can have, because of the work that you've done on yourself and in your journey. So good job, Mama. Good job. Anything, you want to make sure it gets said before we wrap up any last words of wisdom?

 

Diamantina  23:24  

Just for if there's anybody like struggling with their mental health, anybody, any single moms like I've been there, I've had the days where I know God sent me my baby, my two year old now. He was the reason that I got up every morning. Yeah, I had my other children, but they were all older and couldn't do for themselves. The baby needed me during my darkest time. And if it wasn't for him, there are some days I wouldn't have gotten up out of bed because of what I went through. So for anybody walking through anything that feels like it's crippling you. There are better days ahead. And to me, it was my faith in God that got me through those days. And I'm on the other side of it now. Happiest I've ever been. So, yeah, I think.

 

Amber B  24:41  

Yeah, I think there's someone out there that needs to hear that that when we're in the middle of something that's really hard. It's sometimes hard to believe that better days are ahead. And so I think being able to be on the other side of that and give women hope that better days can be ahead. I think it's just such a gift that you're giving to the people who are listening to this. So thank you so much for your story. Thank you for amazingness and thanks for being on the podcast today.

 

Diamantina  25:08  

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

 

Amber B  25:10  

I hope that you enjoyed that episode, learn something from it, and hopefully took something away about how maybe you can believe a little bit more in yourself. And I love this concept of it doesn't matter if anybody else believes in me, that's not the point. The point is, can I believe in myself? Do you have your own back? And I think that's such a great question for us to all ask. 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 it. 

 

Outro

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