Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

443: Skinny Is Back...And It's Not A Good Thing: 3 Mindset Shifts for Women Runners in 2026

• Angie Brown

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Skinny culture is making a comeback… and honestly, it’s got me concerned. It’s not only back — it feels like it’s EVERYWHERE. And it’s not serving runners — especially women in their 40s and beyond.

In this episode of the Real Life Runners Podcast, Kevin and I have a real, honest conversation about why chasing “skinny” is holding so many runners back — from stronger runs, better recovery, and long-term health.

We dive into three powerful mindset shifts that can change how you train, fuel, and feel in your body:

  • Strong over skinny — because muscle is your superpower for performance, injury prevention, and aging well
  • Building over losing — shifting the focus from shrinking your body to building strength, confidence, and resilience
  • Fueling over restricting — learning how proper nutrition (and even eating more!) actually supports fat loss, hormone health, and better running

If you’ve ever felt torn between wanting to be lighter and wanting to be stronger… or if old diet rules are creeping back into your running life, this episode is for you.

We talk about what actually supports sustainable running, why muscle matters more than the number on the scale, and how to move into 2026 focused on health, energy, and longevity — not deprivation.

This is your reminder:
 👉 You don’t need to be smaller to be a better runner.
 👉 You need to be strong, fueled, and supported.

Press play and let’s redefine what healthy running really looks like — together. 💪✨

01:06 New Year Reflections and Upcoming Race

01:32 Kevin's Race Preparations

05:22 Angie's New Year and New Planner 

10:59 The Skinny Culture Discussion

25:40 Owning Your Space and Voice

26:11 Building a Resilient Body

27:11 The Dangers of Rapid Weight Loss

30:17 The Importance of Muscle for Longevity

34:02 Strong Over Skinny

40:08 Fueling Over Restricting

48:49 Summing It All Up

53:14 Join the Movement


Mentioned in the podcast

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Join the 30 Day Running Reset and get a plan that will help you build a strong and injury-proof body by combining running and strength training in a way that actually works for runners like you.

Gain access to my new secret podcast, Unbreakable: The Runner's Guide To Injury-Proofing Your Body After 40. Click here: https://www.realliferunners.com/secret

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Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.

Angie:

Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast. Skinny is back in. Not on this podcast. It's not. Kevin's already over here laughing. So if you've noticed in the culture in the media, skinny is back. It's all over the place. These celebrities are just getting thinner and shrinking. Skinny talk is taking over. GLP ones and weight loss drugs are all over the place. So today I really wanna talk about this major shift that we're seeing back into this skinny mindset and what that. Will lead to if we choose to continue down that road, especially if you are a woman over 40, this is an extremely important conversation that we need to have, so stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the show. Happy New Year again. I know we were with you guys last week on January 1st, but here we are in the second week, but like the first full week of the new year.

Kevin:

Yeah, first full week. This is actually the first time we've recorded in this particular calendar year.

Angie:

That is true because our last one we released on New Year's Day, but we actually recorded it in 2025. Yeah,

Kevin:

we definitely did not record it that morning.

Angie:

No, we did not. All right. So how is your new year starting off, Kev?

Kevin:

new Year's going smooth. I've, it's a weird start to the year because I have a race coming up so soon. Yeah. So a lot of people just try and get their way through the holidays. We've had episodes on that. But I've really had to like really focus through the holidays because I have a race in like less than two weeks at this point.

Angie:

I know. How are you feeling about that? You've got, for those of you that have been following along, Kevin has his next 100 race. What number is this? Are we on number four? Fourth attempt. Fourth attempt.

Kevin:

Yes.'cause I have two belts, two belt buckles. You have two belt buckles.

Angie:

Yeah.'cause you did Daytona and you did long haul last year. Yes. And then you attempted the keys but did not finish it. I did not make it to that finish line. This your fourth 100 mile starting line.

Kevin:

Yes. I made a, I did a hundred K on the first one. Does that count for anything?

Angie:

I absolutely think that counts for something. There you go. So how are you feeling? Now that we're essentially two weeks out, a little less than two weeks out before your race,

Kevin:

I need to get to the planning part. Like you've got, you have spreadsheets of all the things that we need to do, which gives me, yeah, we definitely

Angie:

need to check in. We are supposed to do that over break and somehow Christmas break just disappeared.

Kevin:

Yeah, so once, it's

Angie:

funny how that happens. Once

Kevin:

the two of us sit down and actually do that thing, then I'll feel confident. I know that it exists. I know that it's structured. Yeah. You've got a whole list of things. And honestly for those of us, for those of you who've. Who've been with us for a while and have followed a couple of my a hundred mile things, you know that the answer is as long as I have a water bottle with a cap to it, we're gonna be ahead. So maybe we should

Angie:

order a backup just in case

Kevin:

maybe we just bring your water bottle also.

Angie:

and I have two now. Oh, very exciting. I know. I've got two little soft sided flasks there, so that, that's exciting too. But we have to have, we also bring your vest, like your running vest, and I think you had that on maybe one loop last time.

Kevin:

Yeah, the first loop when I didn't have a functional water bottle.

Angie:

Yes, and then I found the water bottle and we were good to go, and

Kevin:

then I was good after that.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

How is your year going?

Angie:

My year is going well. Are you done talking about how you're feeling before the a hundred though?

Kevin:

yeah. Yeah. You don't wanna talk about it anymore? I'm good. Are you

Angie:

nervous?

Kevin:

I was nervous. I'm past nervous. so

Angie:

what are you just okay, let's get it over with, let's do this thing, or, yeah. Kind, are you excited about it?

Kevin:

The excitement's definitely there. I've passed nerves because I'm, I've passed the point where anything that I can do in training is gonna have a drastic effect on the outcome. Like, all I can really do at this point is screw something up. Yeah. Like I can overdo my training and be like, ah, why don't I just shove in this 10 miler with some speed, I can get too tired for the race. Yeah. But really, as long as I just, try and get some sleep in the first couple of weeks of school here and eat appropriately, I should be fine.

Angie:

It's so interesting that you say that, and I think it's really important because. There's a lot of people that, that's one of the reasons they call it the taper crazies, I think, is that you're done, essentially, your training is done. You've done everything that you can do up to this point. So your brain starts to think about all the things maybe that. Didn't go well or the ways that it didn't go the way you wanted to. Or maybe did I do enough? It's all the question marks that now start arising. Right?

Kevin:

But there's no good answer for the question marks. Yeah. oh man, I not until you get to the race. I really wish I had done that back in March. I didn't do it in March, so what am I gonna do about it now? Like I really wish that my last February had gone smoother.'cause it would've springboarded me into a better summer. Okay, cool. But that ship has sailed. A long time ago. Yeah. So this is what I've got. Time to go race is pretty much where I'm at.

Angie:

Yeah. So we will keep you guys posted. Kevin's race is January 17th. He's gonna be doing the long haul 100. And we just found out that Sally McCray's gonna be doing that race with you too, which is super exciting.

Kevin:

She's coming off of a whole knee injury thing. Yeah. So I'm hoping to be able to stay ahead of her.

Angie:

Yeah. So for those of you that aren't really sure who she is, she's a professional ultra runner. I guess to say the least. She's a lot of other things than that too. She has a lot of other things, but that's one of the things she does. Just, she's a very famous, female ultra runner, which is awesome. So

Kevin:

how about you?

Angie:

How about me? Oh, I was about to jump into the episode. Me? I'm good. it's just the new year is just one of those times where it's exciting and there's goal setting and I got a new planner and I'm so excited about my new planner. I found it on Amazon and it is just. I'm loving it. So far, I'm one of those people that loves planners. I, my mom always tells the story about how when I was a teenager, I used to make her go to multiple stores because I had to have the right planner with the right color and the right layout, and I had to have a monthly view and a weekly view and a daily view. And like I had, it had to be the right layout. And not every store had the right layout for some reason. And yes, oftentimes the search for Angie's. The planner was a multi-store, possibly multi-day process, depending on how much time we had to devote to it.

Kevin:

when we first got together, I was part of that process. Yeah. It was something, I'm not sure why I think I went along with you one time just to see what that, what it looked like, and I'm like, yep. And I'm done with that.

Angie:

maybe in college, the beginning of college or grad school? Possibly.

Kevin:

Maybe grad school. Maybe grad

Angie:

school. Yeah. And so last year I didn't really have an official planner, a paper planner, like I do a lot of my planning electronically. I use Google Calendar and Google tasks because it's much easier for me to always have things on our phone. We, Kevin and I share calendars. I share calendars with the family. It's just one of the easiest ways to make sure that everybody knows what's going on. And so I got away from using. A paper planner, but I do love my heart is really with that paper planner. We were just talking, I was looking at, through different planners last week and saw an Instagram reel from one of the people that I follow and she was talking about her planner and I was like, I should really get a planner this year. And so we were talking about planners with a couple of girls in my like little mastermind group that I have a couple girls that we've been meeting for the last few years and we talk about business stuff and all sorts of fun. And my one friend uses the full focus planner. It's like a planner by Michael Hyatt. He's like a famous personal development type of dude. And so I went on and the planner was like 60 bucks for a 90 day planner. And I was like, oh, that's quite an investment. And that's fine. if you, if that's the planner for you, then fine. So when I looked that up on Amazon, I found this one and I started looking through the photos and the pages and I was like, I really like the way that this is laid out. And so I ordered it and this one was only 25 bucks. It is fantastic. I am in love with this planner already. The one thing that I love, really love about it, and if you guys want, I'll link it. I can always link it in the show notes or send it out to you.

Kevin:

This is not an ad. She's just actually not excited for the planner sitting in front of us, and I know

Angie:

that there's a lot of. Teams, like our team members that listen to the podcast. So I'll be sharing it with you guys if you are interested as well. But the one thing I really like about this planner that's different from a lot of other ones is that it has a weekend review. And this is one of the things that I think is really important for us to do, is to reflect every single week on what went well this week, what didn't go as well, what did not go the way that I planned it? And then what do I wanna take into next week? How am I gonna make. Next week better. And then it allows, there's like a whole goal setting section for the following week, and it's just one of the ways that we talked about, last week we talked a lot about. Process goals and outcome goals and those kinds of things. And this really helps you take those bigger outcome types of goals and break it down into process goals. what am I gonna focus on this year? Then what am I gonna focus on this quarter? And then what am I gonna focus on this month and this week? And you just keep breaking it down into smaller bite-sized chunks and so that it becomes something that's, if I just check these boxes, then I will achieve that thing.

Kevin:

Yeah, it's a nice setup of a planner. Yeah. I'm gonna continue to use scraps of paper that I find on my desk at school and write things on the back of them.

Angie:

Yep. Sounds right. anyway, that's my excitement for this week. and I am have also, I'm really also excited because I've started planning the year and like the. Races and the things that I wanna do because yes, I have decided I'm going to race this year and I'm going to do a trail race and I wanna do a team Ragnar. so if you're on the Real Life Runners team, if you're one of our members, watch your email. The email should have already gotten gone out, by the time this podcast is released. to gauge interest in what I'm thinking because I would love for some of you to join us in the Team Relay race. I think it'd be really fun and it's gonna be. In a very amazing, fun location. So I am excited about like doing various trail races around the country this year.

Kevin:

That was very elusive. I know how you describe that thing. It was nice. I'm Did you raise it all last? I'm wanna this year. Why do I

Angie:

wanna be elusive? I don't really know. I don't

Kevin:

know. I've, elusive has never been a term that people used to describe. I don't think, I wanna make sure, I

Angie:

wanna sign up, I think before I like make an official announcement. Yeah, that makes, because right now there's still spots available.

Kevin:

That makes sense. Was the only race you did last year the school 5K?

Angie:

huh Yeah, that's, I'm pretty sure. I think the last two years are. I don't think I've done an official race other than the school 5K. I

Kevin:

mean, literally I ran a hundred miles in January and then did a school 5K in December, I think was my full racing calendar. Yeah. So it's not like I've got much to brag about over here.

Angie:

I'm not necessarily, I'm like, you know this about me, like I'm not a big racer. Like I'm not ever been someone that's super motivated. For racing. but I am, and I, and that got even less in 2020, like after 2020, Because of all that, like my running group and I, we did a bunch of races in 2017 through 2019 and then 2020 hit and everything got shut down and I just never went back to the racing scene per se. But you but I train very consistently is

Kevin:

back. And you're excited. So here we go. Yeah, I think

Angie:

it's gonna be fun. So that's my 2026. So I went on a couple longer runs this week. I'm starting to increase my mileage a little bit, which I have not done in quite a while because I need to get prepared for some of these races that are coming up.

Kevin:

excellent.

Angie:

I know, I'm feeling excited about it. So let's jump in to the topic that. We alluded to in the intro today, and really this is a very important conversation. It's been something that I've been wanting to start talking about for a while now because I've been seeing just so much of it all over social media and the regular media and mainstream media, and it is. All of the return and obsession with Skinny again, we are seeing advertisements for all the weight loss drugs, things like the GLP ones like Ozempic and Wegovy and all the other different brands of it. Now there's a ton of them. we're seeing celebrities just shrinking. Even the people that were in the. body positivity movement that had larger bodies are now shrinking and now are now having much smaller bodies. We're seeing professional athletes like Serena Williams advertising these medications. it's'cause

Kevin:

it's her husband's company. It

Angie:

is her husband's company. But there's just this constant, I think, barrage. Of photos and videos and you're just seeing how skinny people are getting, and me as a physical therapist especially, like my warning flags are just all over the place. I'm like, this is not healthy. I am not here to judge. Let me just put that out there. I'm not here about telling you that you should or shouldn't be on these medications. This is not about judgment. This is about. women's empowerment really, because that's always what I stand for. And I want you to make the choices that are going to be the best for you long term. And so I think it's really important for us to acknowledge what's happening and call it out and say, okay, if we continue down this road, where is this going to lead? Because my brain's wait a second, haven't we been here before? as women that grew up. In the eighties and nineties in, supermodel era and super skinny culture. We've seen a lot of this before. we've, been a part of the low rise genes and diet culture and restriction as a virtue. we've been there, done that kind of thing, and. It over the last few years there's we've been getting away from that and it was more of a movement of being strong and, loving your body and all of this, which I was loving all of that messaging and now all of a sudden it's been this huge, it seems like very sudden shift back to skinny.

Kevin:

it's just the pendulum going. There was a point where everybody was. They really just wanted to be like, fit and strong. Yeah. And then fit and strong was like, actually you can be whatever shape you want. And then it's possible, my opinion, it's possible that things swung too far that direction of, you can be whatever size you want. Not every size is healthy. Like what TV show? Was there an ad running for in the background the other day? the Thousand Pound Sisters? Not everybody size is a positive thing and so I think people pushed back against that and were like, alright, if that's not okay, then we should swing all the way the other direction. We never like to stop in the middle. It's if you shouldn't be. Proud of whatever size you are, then let's pick a size and that size is gonna be as small as possible.

Angie:

I just think there's nothing wrong with loving your body regardless of the size, because I think that we should always love ourselves and love our body. I also think that there is a point where your. The size of your body can lead to more health complications and increase risk of certain diseases. We've seen this in research. This is not like me being judgy, but too skinny, like when you lose too much weight. We see this a lot of similar things. We also see an increased risk for certain diseases and certain health conditions when bodies become too small. We're gonna be talking about that today too because it's important for us to. Acknowledge both sides.

Kevin:

Yeah. any extreme is usually, an issue for overall health. But the problem is that, Extremes, sell really well. Yeah. And they play really well. Especially on whatever form of social media you're at. You just pick an extreme side and either people will agree with you'cause it's extreme or people are gonna be strongly against you. And bringing nuance to the situation, being like, actually these two body sizes that are totally different visually are both very healthy because they fit for that person. And their lifestyle and all the other stuff. But there's so much nuance in that. And nuance is very tricky. Yeah. To put into a short little snippet on social media.

Angie:

Right, and the very polarizing types of content is what gets you the likes and the clicks and the comments. Regardless if they're good comments or bad comments, positive or negative. Algorithm

Kevin:

doesn't care what the comment is. It doesn't care because

Angie:

it's just engagement. And people then will. Use that as a way to get their name out there, even if they're saying things that seem a little extreme.

Kevin:

yes. They put an extreme point of view out there just to get themselves known, and then they're like, actually, this is my real thoughts on it. It's that ship has sailed because how am I supposed to trust you? You're just making crazy extreme statements.

Angie:

Right, and so this episode is really not about shaming bodies or shaming choices or anything like that. It's not. About telling you or the people that you know, because I'm sure at this point in time, somebody that's on these weight loss drugs. I feel like it's one of those situations where we all know at least one person, probably multiple people that are on these weight loss drugs. So it's not about, bringing any sort of shame or judgment. It's about. You making the choices that are going to help you protect your health, your mindset, and your long-term vitality as a woman and as runners men too. I like,'cause I, you, I would say thank you. I know, obviously I'm often speaking to the women, especially with diet culture. I don't think that diet culture is the same for men. It's not that men don't have. Different body expectations and maybe you can speak on that a bit too, inside of the

Kevin:

competitive men's running community. Yeah. There is certainly body issues.

Angie:

Yeah. I'm not saying there's no body issues, I'm just saying that oftentimes diet culture doesn't target men the way that it targets women.

Kevin:

No. that is a hundred percent true, but I think part of that is also based off of women account for most of the household spending also. and like they make most of the monetary decisions.

Angie:

You think so?

Kevin:

Yeah. There was something that said like in, in a, in a household like ours, yeah. Women tend to make I think 80% of the financial decisions in terms of like purchases coming into the house. So you throw a diet culture at them. And they're going to make most of the choices about what to buy at the grocery store.

Angie:

Yeah. So back to this skinny culture that we are now seeing the reemergence of this is really important because it is all over the place, and so we have to be. Looking at this from a very critical lens.'cause skinny culture is very seductive, right? It promises control and certainty. They've told us for decades, if you are smaller, if you are skinnier, you're gonna be happier. You're going to be more attractive to the opposite sex you are going to be. You are gonna feel better about yourself and so many times. When women lose weight and they go through these processes, they oftentimes either can't keep it off because what they're doing is non-sustainable, or they get down to a certain size that they thought was going to make them happy, and it turns out that. Didn't actually make them happy. And it was, the whole thing was a lie because they never learned to love their bodies and love themselves in the process. And they were doing all of that restriction and the weight loss and all of it from a place of being unhappy and disliking their bodies. And so when you get down to that weight, you think that you're gonna automatically love your body. Now that you. Look at the, in the mirror and see something different. And that's not often what happens. And that can be a really confusing place to be.

Kevin:

it's the body weight version. It's still a number that you're chasing for, but it's the diet similarity of a time on a clock crossing the finish line. sure. oh, if I just train myself, I hate the training. I hate every day I'm doing it. But if I just keep going And I hit my Boston qualifier, then I'm gonna, I'm finally gonna be a fast runner. And you hit it and you don't. Feel any different? Yeah.'cause it's just a number on a clock. It's just a number on a scale. It doesn't actually change who you are. if you hated everything along the way, you're still, you're like, you're just hating yourself through the whole process.

Angie:

Yeah. And I know that with a lot of these weight loss drugs, because the weight loss tends to be more rapid than a quote, normal weight loss, a lot of times when people lose a significant amount of weight. In a short amount of time and they look in the mirror, the body doesn't look the way that they thought it was going to look. It's not like all of a sudden they're looking in their mirror and they're seeing like muscle and themselves all toned up and tight and all the right places. A lot of times people look in the mirror and they see saggy skin and they see. Even more wrinkles and they just find other things about their body that they don't like. it's just replacing one for the other in a lot of ways. if

Kevin:

you already don't like your body and you look in the mirror, you're always gonna find something else that you can decide, oh, actually that's what I now don't like about my body.

Angie:

And We have seen this movie before, right? We've seen what happens when our culture is obsessed with Skinny Woody laughing at,

Kevin:

you've seen this movie before? Yes, it was every movie between 1995 and 99, every movie.

Angie:

But we know what happens here, right? Like when our culture as a whole is obsessed with body size and being skinny and being smaller, it often leads to disordered eating patterns. Leads to broken metabolism as runners. It leads to injuries and burnout and loss of joy in movement. If you're just out there running in order to burn calories and try to shrink your body, that's not a joyful process. It just isn't.

Kevin:

Yeah, no, that, To me, that's the one that hits me is it's loss of joy in the movement. Yeah. It's a thing that you have to do so that you can try it. It all comes down to control. It's a thing that I'm gonna go out and do this, do the miles, do the workout so that I can control my body. And that just takes all of the joy and fun out of it. And as soon as you take the fun out, it's very difficult to maintain the consistency.

Angie:

And the other thing we have to remember is that our bodies now are a lot different than they were in the eighties and nineties, like our midlife. 40, 50, 60 plus year old bodies respond much differently than they did when we were in our teens, in our twenties. And so we cannot treat our bodies now the way that we did when we were teenagers because quite frankly it wasn't good for us then. And it's even worse for us now. And that's why I really want us to take a critical look at this. And today I really want to offer all of you. Three mindset shifts that will move us forward instead of backward, right? We don't wanna go back into that skinny culture and the damage that has done to so many people, both physically and mentally. and I'm gonna talk about some of the physical problems of all that as we go here. But we're gonna talk about three main mindset shifts that I would love to offer you to join me in 2026, because these are for sure. The three mindsets that I'm gonna be taking into 2026.

Kevin:

All right. Before we hit the first one, I have a thought here. You said that we can't do treat our bodies the way we did when we were teenagers. Yeah. I feel like there is a similar issue, and this is predominantly for women, so I'm gonna try and say this without sounding like I'm mansplaining and then lead it to you to correct me on everything. if you were basically fasting your way through your teenage years That could completely jack up all of your hormones. Yes. The same thing is happening in perimenopause and menopause. Like it's just gonna completely throw your hormones outta whack. Yeah. Which is then going to have downstream effects in every other system in your body. Yeah, a hundred

Angie:

percent.

Kevin:

You've got different crazy hormones going on, but throwing a complete lack of food at it seems like it's going to be like the worst thing that you could do in terms of Hormone fluctuations.

Angie:

Yeah. it's not that we have different crazy hormones going on. It's all the same hormones. They're all, they're just acting different. Yes, they're acting different. They're not different

Kevin:

things. Yeah.

Angie:

Like when you go through, through puberty and your teenage years, you're your body's getting used to the new hormones that are starting to be released in the body and now we're losing all of those hormones. So it's the same darn hormones that are throwing our bodies for a loop. They're just doing different things. And so yes, restricting your calories and starving yourself and fasting and just focusing on weight loss can make a lot of these hormonal changes and shifts that are happening in our bodies. Even, I don't wanna say worse'cause that's not really the word I'm looking for, but more extreme I guess, right? Like it make not better, it make, it can make the effects of those hormone shifts, much more. A parent?

Kevin:

yeah, I just, I thought that there was a little bit of a parallel. There is a

Angie:

parallel for sure. Mindset

Kevin:

shift number one, which is

Angie:

fun for those of us that have teenage daughters that are going through puberty. And also we, our bodies are going through perimenopause, I remember

Kevin:

puberty with my giant hit of testosterone that I had,

Angie:

but at least you have a male dog in the house now, so it's not, you're not surrounded by all females. Yeah,

Kevin:

he's my favorite.

Angie:

All right. The mindset shifts, shall we?

Kevin:

Yes, please.

Angie:

Mindset shift number one is building over losing. So our old mindset is, let's lose weight, shrink your body, take up less space. Space. It's all about losing weight, losing size, bringing it down. And the new mindset that I would love to offer you is to focus on building muscle, building bone, building resilience, building energy, because all of that is going to make your life feel and your body feel so much better. Both now and in the future?

Kevin:

mentally the old mindset had take up less space. And the pushback against this, as you started moving into, I'd say the early two thousands was like own your space. And it really pushed back against this like mentality of. You need to shrink yourself and be smaller in the world. And it was like, no. I'm gonna fully own my space. Whatever my space is, that's what I'm doing. And yes, there's all of the actual health benefits of building everything that you're laying out here. Yeah. But that mentality of you don't need to take up less space, you need to own your space, I think is behind all of it.

Angie:

I think it is really important for us to own our space, and I think especially as women, and we've been taught to. Be quieter and take up less space in the room. Not just physically, but also verbally, right? Like women have their place and I think that there was a big women's empowerment movement and all of that, and then women were seen as powerful and then they were got, there were other adjectives, negative types of adjectives that were often added to very powerful women because a powerful woman can be a very intimidating thing in the world.

Kevin:

Yeah. You have always been very good with, with. Owning your space and voice, which is why we had to get a second microphone. so that I could also have some volume on. It's important. It is important because you were very good. Get closer to the microphone. You're very good at speaking your voice, of having your voice be heard. And so I had to get my own microphone over here.

Angie:

See, so this is, applies to you also. Perfect. You need to take up your space here on the podcast and in the world. Excellent. Yeah. So it's not just for women, it's definitely for. Soft-spoken men as well. Thank you. I love you. But it is important for all of us, regardless if you are a man or a woman to. Really think about longevity in this whole game because oftentimes losing is a temporary goal, but building is a long-term strategy. Building is about sustainability. Think about if you're building a building, like if you're building a house, if you're building. An actual physical structure. You're trying to build something that's going to last. And we should be thinking our bo about our bodies the same way. We need to be building a body that's going to last, that's going to be resilient, that's going to be strong, that's going to be able to withstand all the crazy things that life throws at us. And the way that we're going to do that is by building muscle, by building bone, by building our power and our strength so that we can maintain. Our agility and our independence as we get older, because so many times when we focus on losing this can be very problematic. And I said this earlier in the episode of, as a physical therapist, when I see people on these weight loss drugs and just with these really rapid weight loss, stories that I'm seeing, it makes me. Very scared for their bone density. I know, which sounds like such a crazy statement, but like their muscle, their lean muscle mass, and their bone density because when we lose weight, when humans lose weight quickly. They're not, you're not just losing fat, you're losing muscle and you're losing bone, and you're losing all sorts of other things that are in your body. And when you lose bone, that's going to set you up at an increased risk for osteopenia and osteoporosis. If you then have osteoporosis, that's a loss of bone density, so you're bones are more fragile, then you are going to be at a higher risk for falls. And if you do fall, you're gonna be at a higher risk for fractures and one in two women right now. One in two women will experience an osteoporosis related fracture at some point in their life, and if we continue down this skinny culture road. That makes me very scared that number is going to go higher. One in two is already ridiculously high.

Kevin:

Is it? This is all women all age?

Angie:

Yes. at some point in their life, one in two women will have a fracture from osteoporosis.

Kevin:

That's crazy. and you, if you dive into that, and I'm. Not gonna try and put you on the spot. Yeah. But if you dive into that stat, I would assume that most of that starts at a certain age. Essentially throwing in the, all these weight loss drugs is let's start the osteoporosis fractures earlier in life.

Angie:

And that's what I'm wondering is, I'm really curious if some of the studies are gonna come out and start to show that because 80% of people with osteoporosis are women. So we know that osteoporosis affects women disproportionately, and then if you do have osteoporosis, you are likely to have an osteoporosis related fracture at some point in your life. And that can just, these fractures can literally be spontaneous. That's the craziest thing. Like it could be when you're just bending over to pick something up off the ground. I've had patients before that will just literally burst their vertebrae in their back, will crack just by bending over to try to pick something up off the ground. Nothing, nothing even heavy. And there's actually, I use the word burst because that's actually what happens to the vertebrae in some cases. it's wild. So we don't want that, obviously, because if you're, if you fracture a bone, we also know that. If you fracture something, especially if it's a hip, then you're more likely to die at a younger age as well. There's statistics that show that as well. That's why people are so afraid of breaking a hip. If you've ever heard people talk about that's one of the reasons

Kevin:

yeah. the stat on that one of like post hip fracture Yeah. To, to death is like way too rapid. It's way too rapids tragic.

Angie:

Right. And it's a, it's not that a hip fracture causes death, it's just, it's because of. What I think leads to the hip fracture in the first place

Kevin:

and then the domino effect afterwards. Correct. Like you were already weak, you're weak to begin with, and then you

Angie:

become immobile.

Kevin:

Yeah. That's what I was gonna say. It's the immo immobility that follows it. Where you could be doing some strength during that, but you're not, you're immobile.'cause you were probably immobile beforehand.

Angie:

And if you're immobile, then you just rapidly lose muscle mass even more. And muscle is the organ of longevity. Muscle is the most important thing that we need to be building as. Humans. Okay. I was gonna say as women, but it's truly as humans, because again, if you lose muscle, like lean muscle mass is going to help you with so many things. It's going to help you just with your activities of daily life and your independence, your ability to get it up and down off a chair, up and down off the toilet. The stronger you are in, the more muscle you have, the longer you're gonna be able to stay independent and. That's really important. the other thing that muscle helps with is balance, and we're talking about falls, because that's where my little physical therapy brain loves to go because we've, there were so many falls, that I've dealt with throughout my career. When you lose muscle, your balance is affected. And if you're. Your balance is affected, that's gonna put you at an increased risk of falls. If you're losing muscle, that's gonna put you at an increased risk of frailty and the things that we just talked about. And nope, none of us wanna be there, right? Like I can say with confidence that probably 100% of people listening to this podcast does not want to end up. With a fracture or does not wanna end up in a wheelchair one day. We wanna stay strong and active as we age.

Kevin:

I think most people listening to this wanna line up against you in that 80 to 85 category. I sure hope so. At the a hundred meter dash, I better have some competition.

Angie:

And the other thing we need to think about too is that as we lose muscle, that also leads to a slower metabolism because. Your muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in your body, so it takes the most amount of energy and calories just to maintain muscle that you have on your body. So if you're losing muscle, your metabolism slows down because you're not burning as many calories as rest or at rest. So then. What can happen if you, if your metabolism slows down, that can lead to weight gain and fat redistribution, which is obviously something that none of us want either.

Kevin:

And then people double down on losing more and it just, it's not the path you want because you're just spiraling in the wrong direction.

Angie:

Yeah. And one of the, this is one of the main things that is happening during like perimenopause and menopause that has so many women. Upset and trying to figure out what to do about it. Is this fat redistribution? It's not. A lot of times, women aren't actually gaining weight. Some, sometimes they are, but not always. But a lot of times what we're seeing is more of a fat redistribution, more around the midsection because of the changes in our hormones and the, what the changing hormones is doing to our body is just basically causing us to, to hold more fat around the midsection. So it's not necessarily that women are gaining weight. A lot of times they're not. They're just their body's redistributing where it is located. They're just moving

Kevin:

where it's located. Yeah,

Angie:

exactly. but that's gonna make people want to then lose weight and then restrict and go through, that whole cycle as well. But again, we don't want that, We want to build, we wanna be choosing building over losing. Because if we're choosing building, and if we're trying to build muscle and build strength. That is also going to support you as a runner because building is going to help you improve your speed. It's going to help you improve your endurance, and it's gonna help you improve your injury resistance because if you have more muscle to support your bones, to support your joints, to support all of your connective tissues, you're going to help decrease your risk of injury. Losing often undermines performance. So if you are a runner that cares about performance, this is a really important mindset shift for you to make as well,

Kevin:

which is how Angie gets me completely on board into the weight room of look, losing the weight, losing the strength that undermines your performance. You need to have, be as strong as possible to reduce your risk of injury because by reducing your risk of injury, then you can actually increase your endurance, you can increase your power, you can increase your speed. All of those are what you want. And then that gets me into the weight room with her.

Angie:

Amen. And we all know how much I love Kevin in the weight room with me.

Kevin:

There you go.

Angie:

All right. Mindset shift number two, and obviously all these things are connected. Mindset shift number two is strong over skinny. So number one is building over losing. Number two is strong over skinny. Maybe I should have swapped those, but it is what it is at this point. So our old mindset. When we were growing up, people told us that if you're skinnier, that means you're healthy. That means you're disciplined. That means you're worthy. That means you're, you can love yourself. You're allowed to love yourself if you're skinnier. I,

Kevin:

I was a guy. I didn't get these messages. I went to an old boys high school. I was not told if I was skinny, I was worthy, I was told I was too skinny. They,

Angie:

and nobody directly said that to us, obviously. But when you see the images of all the skinny women getting the boyfriends and all the things like. That's the message that is received by,

Kevin:

no one told you that skinny was worthy. I'm pretty sure I saw the ads, the magazines in the nineties, a hundred percent every ad. The tagline might as well have been, skinny is worthy, skinny is better. that should have just been the tagline. It wasn't, it was, by Calvin Klein, but that's, it could have been the tagline.

Angie:

So going back to what you just said about people telling you that you were too skinny.

Kevin:

because I was at the other end of this. I was of the other gender. And so my gender, skinny was lovely. You needed to be skinny enough that you could see all of your muscles. that was what looked appropriate. You saw guys on television, they were always shirtless. They were not huge. They weren't like these huge Muscle bound gym bros. But they was. Just definition everywhere. And so that was the angle that I was going for. And it was tricky for me to put muscle on. And so I just thought, if I could get skinnier, then you'll just be able to see all of my muscles.

Angie:

so that was one of the thoughts that you had going?

Kevin:

That was the thought I had going, no one ever told me that. I just got there by looking around at the other runners around me. But again, so did you want

Angie:

to lose weight when you were. A runner in high school,

Kevin:

I didn't really care what the number was. I just wanted to look like the people who were faster than me

Angie:

and they were skinnier.

Kevin:

They looked more sinewy.

Angie:

Sinewy. huh. Okay.

Kevin:

And I was doing the same thing. They were in the weight room. And so I was like, for doing the same thing. And the answer was, I needed a different weightlifting program. that was the thing is they were putting on muscle differently than I was putting on muscle. So I literally just needed a weight program that worked better for me. And then I would've gotten to exactly where I wanted to go. But in the back of my head I was like, I should probably just. if I didn't have whatever's covering muscle, then you could see muscles better, probably so did you probably, the skin was covering muscles.

Angie:

Did you restrict?

Kevin:

No, I ate so much during high school.

Angie:

Okay. So then in what way did you try to make that happen?

Kevin:

I never wanted, I weighed myself all the time in high school because I was pretty sure that if the number on the scale went up without my height going up, that was gonna cause a problem.

Angie:

So it was more about maintaining Yeah. Where you were versus like losing, yes. Okay. So for you, was it more about being skinny or was it more about being strong?

Kevin:

I don't know. Like you're. Chasing back like 25 years Yeah. To try and figure out like what it was that was driving what I wanted my body to look like. And at the time I wanted to run faster and have a girlfriend. And I don't know if I had a whole lot of thoughts on my body. On the second part of it, and I trusted my coach, so I just kinda did whatever he suggested that I do. Yeah. In order to get as fast as possible. the skinny cyber was heading into college my freshman year. I ran so much over that summer and I hadn't fixed how much food I was taking in, and so that was the, I think. Height to weight. That was the smallest I've ever been. Was when I arrived at school.

Angie:

Yeah. And it's probably not a coincidence that you were just constantly injured also.

Kevin:

No, definitely not. Not a coincidence at all.

Angie:

Yeah. So when we think about like strong over skinny and we think about the benefits of being skinny and the benefits of being strong. The cultural messages that we've received, at least as women, I'll just, I'll speak to that point and if you wanna speak to the men's point you can, but I know the cultural messages that we've been receiving as women throughout our lives is that skinnier and smaller is better. And what we were talking about before of taking up less space and how strong women we're often seen as intimidating and can still, even to this day, trigger discomfort in people. And so a lot of people think that. A strong woman is almost a negative connotation when someone says, oh, she's a really strong woman. it's not that. it's a negative connotation that's a little bit of ex an extreme, but people like it and appreciate it. But then also don't wanna deal with the women that are strong.'cause I oftentimes. We are a bit of a force to be dealt with.

Kevin:

That is a really great way of putting it. People like it as an ideal Yeah. Over there.

Angie:

Yeah. But

Kevin:

not something that I would like to actually interact with.

Angie:

Yeah. But I, it's a

Kevin:

very interesting way of putting that.

Angie:

And so then when you think about what kind of woman you wanna be too, you want. We just have a natural need as humans for people to like us. We have a need for belonging. And so if strong women have being a strong woman, if that has a cultural negative connotation to it, I can understand why people would want to shy away from it and just be like, okay, I'm just gonna choose skinny instead.

Kevin:

Yeah, no, all of that makes perfect sense. it makes

Angie:

sense, but what I'm offering you guys is that strong is amazing, being strong. Is a feminine thing. It's powerful, it is desirable. there's plenty of very strong, amazing, desirable women out there. And if you focus on being strong over skinny, again, this is gonna just set you up for a lot better longevity and. Quality of life as you get older too. Not just physically, but mentally. Also, like if you are a strong woman mentally and you feel powerful and you feel empowered in your life, like that is a fantastic feeling to walk around with.

Kevin:

I'm just gonna have to agree.

Angie:

Do you wanna make any comments on the male side of things?

Kevin:

I don't. I've just, I feel like I'm just gonna agree with you on that point and All right. Move to mindset. Mindset shift three.

Angie:

Yeah, because this is really what. We wanna talk about a lot here too, is this mindset shift number three, which is fueling over restricting. And this is essentially the process to achieve the outcome of skinny versus strong that we've been talking about, and the building over losing because in order to be skinnier. And to lose weight. We've been told that we need to restrict our food. We've been told to eat less, to restrict in order to control what our body looks like. We've been taught to earn our food. Like how many times have you seen a video or an image on the social media that's like. In order to burn off Thanksgiving dinner, you would have to run for five hours and 45 minutes. I'm just making up numbers here. These aren't actual things that I've seen, but I've seen these images and I've seen these people talking about this of nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. And so that's all about restricting and not giving your body what. It needs or what you want at the time. And instead of that old mindset of eating less and earning your food and restriction, what I'm offering you to take into 2026 is to fuel your body to actually give your body what it needs, because food is fuel. And when you restrict calories, oh. You are withholding things that your body needs, and with withholding things that your body can use to get stronger, to perform better. If you have performance goals like being able to run faster or run longer, your body needs fuel. And if you're restricting, your body's not getting what it needs, your body's not going to be able to perform the way that you want to. You also need fuel for recovery. Again, if you want to chase performance goals, you have to recover you. You do hard things, and then you need to recover from that. And during that recovery period, you need to give your body the fuel and the building blocks that it needs for your body to build back stronger and to actually adapt to training. And if you're restricting and you're not giving your body the proper fuel, you're not going to get the same performance benefits that you could if you were to give your body. More food.

Kevin:

Yeah. That's where the earning food really gets dangerous. Yeah. And the number of shirts that are like, I run for the cookies, I run for dessert. Yeah. I run for the wine. no, you don't, you just go out and run. And then you also put food into your body. These don't have to be a connected thing.

Angie:

And cookies

Kevin:

are delicious and cookies are delicious. but. The idea that you have to get a workout in order to earn food really hinders the fuel for recovery. Yeah. And there was a recent study that came out that suggested that you, most runners, I think it was runners have higher protein needs on the day after a hard run Than on the day of. Yeah. And most people were like, oh, no. I had a good workout this morning, so I'm gonna make sure that I eat well today. Yeah. But it's the next day that the, nutrition needs were actually even higher. Following ultra marathons, metabolism was screwed up for the next 10 to 14 days, I was

Angie:

gonna say, one and a half to two weeks, right? It was

Kevin:

like baseline metabolism was still above average. And so it was like, even if you were literally doing nothing, you're just sitting on the couch recovering from a ridiculously long race. People do a marathon and they're like, oh, I just need to like have a few days off and recover from this. And because they're not doing anything. They're not putting food into their body, but that's when you need to put the food into your body so that your body can actually recover from it. So if you at all are hanging onto that hole, I need to earn my food, it's Okay. if you desperately have to cling to that, you've earned it for the next two weeks. Like you've earned it for days. You don't have to. It's not every single day what goes in and out, have to balance each other. That's just not how this process works. It's not calories in, calories out. You have to fuel your body all the time. Newer studies is suggesting that. Even like a couple of hours of calorie deficit is drastic to screw up like your hormone profile. And have everything throw up. You always need to make sure that you are fueling your body. Always, whether it's a workout day, it's not a workout day, it's an easy run. You have to get the food coming into your body to actually recover and perform at your best.

Angie:

Yeah, and I think this is where so many runners get it wrong, is they think about, they're like, okay, fine, I'm gonna fuel, I'm gonna refuel on the days of my long runs or hard workouts, but today's a rest day, so I probably don't need to eat as much. And what Kevin is saying here, and he's correct your body. Possibly needs even more calories on a rest day than it does on the actual exercise day, because that's when your body's recovering and that's when your body's rebuilding itself and getting stronger and refilling all of its storage and all of that stuff. So you should not be restricting just because it's rest day. Your rest day is just, again, part of your training as a whole, and you need to be fueling your body as the athlete that you are because your fuel. Matters for your performance. It matters for your recovery, and it also matters for your hormones and your nervous system health. If you are restricting, your body doesn't feel safe, your body is getting the message that I don't have what I need to survive. And when it gets that message, your nervous system goes into fight or flight. Your cortisol levels go up. I know everybody likes to talk about cortisol now, but your body is overstressed. So when you are. More stress, like restricting your body. Restricting calories is actually a stress on your body. And when you are in stress mode and you are in sympathetic activation, that's your nervous system. Your body cannot recover you, you can't recover. Recovery happens in parasympathetic mode, so if your body's stressed because you're restricting, you're not recovering properly, and if you don't recover properly. You are going to be putting yourself at an increased risk for injury and burnout and sickness and all sorts of things. So your calories that you take in, the food that you take in is so important for all systems of your body. And if you're under fueling, this can often show up as fatigue injuries, slower paces, poor recovery for what we were just talking about. So learning how to fuel your body is not only going to give you. Give your body what it needs in order to perform and to recover. But it's also going to help your body feel safe. It's going to build trust. You are going to be building trust with your body so your body then can let go of any excess weight that it's holding onto. And this is what's so many people, it, this is one of those pieces that confuse so many people.'cause they're like, I'm restricting. But I'm not losing weight or I'm even gaining weight. I don't understand why I'm gaining weight here. And part of that is because if you are overly restricting your body or restricting your body for an extended period of time. Your body just downregulates, your metabolism literally will slow down and your body will burn less calories at risk because it's not confident that more is coming. So your body essentially doesn't trust that it's going to have what it needs to survive. So it downregulates everything.

Kevin:

Yeah. And then this gets worse if you have a really hard or long workout. Yes. And then you don't fuel the next day. Part of what your body's doing during recovery is refueling your glycogen source in like your muscles and your liver. It has to refuel these things. If you're like, oh, but I. I fuel during the run. It's impossible to fuel enough calories in during a workout. Your body just literally doesn't digest fast enough to keep up with the calories that you're burning. it just, it's not gonna work. so you have to, over the course of that day and the next day, take in enough calories that your body can then do its normal functions and refuel its stores. And if it's then building muscle, that's like another reason to have the extra calories on board. Yeah. That's why the next day seems to have this like higher than normal calorie need because it has to do the extra task of refilling your stores That you used up on the day before. oh, but I'm good at fueling during the run. That's great. So your stores are maybe not as emptied as they could have been? But they're still emptying because I had to go to them because you. You literally cannot take in enough calories to keep up with your output,

Angie:

right? So your body is just dysregulated in multiple different systems and you can't regulate it. You can't reregulate it. If you're depriving it, that's just not what happens, right? So food is support for your body. Food is information for your body. Food is recovery. It is not the enemy. So this is one of the reasons we have to shift that mindset over. Instead of thinking about restricting our calories and restricting our food, we have to think about fueling our bodies and giving our body what it needs. So to sum it all up and to tie it all together, we wanna focus on the big three, which is. Strong over skinny. Building over losing and fueling, over restricting. So these are not trendy things. This is not what you're gonna see in the media. Maybe sometimes, like there are definitely people spreading this message, which I think is super important and I am all for it, that I am on team building, fueling strong, over losing skinny restricting for sure. Sure.

Kevin:

But this doesn't sound controversial. No. This sounds like logical health and that's not gonna trend very well.

Angie:

No. And but the thing that I want all of us to hear and understand is that these are really foundational beliefs for long-term health, especially for us women who have hormones that are much more responsive to some of these, restrictions and things that happen in our body. if we want to run, lift, live and age well these are. The three foundations that we really need to start building on,

Kevin:

plus all the whole diet culture is just a giant pendulum. Yeah. So if you get on board with just being strong and fit and healthy, that's gonna swing back and be the cool thing in 10 years. So you'll be ahead of the curve

Angie:

and like how many 10 years cycles do I have to go into until I'm at like that 90-year-old Olympics? I keep saying Olympics like the 90-year-old masters championships would probably be a better Yes. Thing to say. I,

Kevin:

I think that we'll be back in like the healthy at that point in time, we'll be

Angie:

back in healthy. Yeah, that's, that's just where I'm gonna live. The rest of my life is right and that. Area. So whatever happens, whatever that feels

Kevin:

more sustainable.

Angie:

Yeah, whatever pendulum wants to shift any direction, that's you'll, that's where you'll find me. So you wanna join me because I would love for more people to join me in this and choose strong over skinny. Choose building over losing, and choose fueling over restrictions. So if you have found yourself. Falling into skinny talk or falling into different corners of Instagram and social media, be careful because these messages are coming back and you don't want to allow yourself, because quite frankly, those are well worn paths in the brain. Like we have been believing these things for a long time. And what I'm telling you is that if you are just focusing on restriction. And being smaller and shrinking, you are putting yourself on a path towards osteoporosis, towards frailty, towards a loss of independence. that is the direction and the path that you're choosing. And if that's, if it's, if your size two genes are worth it to you, then that's your choice. I'm not gonna judge you, but I would invite you. To come over to my side size, where to size side and maybe size right, where a size four or a size six is gonna lead you to have a lot more muscle on your body, allow you to deadlift a hundred pounds, 200 pounds, whatever it might be. I tell you that I set a goal to deadlift 200 pounds this year. Excellent. That's insane. That's really crazy. That's

Kevin:

why we had to get the good bar.

Angie:

I'm at a hundred. What am I at 105 right now? I can't remember. I have to go check and see, but basically. Doubling what I'm doing right now is insane.

Kevin:

That's an exciting goal. I know it is. I don't think that's a throwback to where you were back in the nineties.

Angie:

It's definitely not a throwback. No. I think

Kevin:

maybe I should just go back to like acid washed jeans and bleached out hair. that's the high school version that I would like to go back to.

Angie:

Maybe I can go back to apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur. Excellent. It sounds like a plan. but I am building some powerful glutes.

Kevin:

There you go. I mean that

Angie:

big booty girls make the world go round, don't they? oh, fat bottom girls, that

Kevin:

that is not the nineties. You gotta go earlier for. That's queen. We're going back on that one.

Angie:

Yep. Yep. Fantastic. All right. So be careful. All right. Be careful out there. Safeguard your attention if you feel yourself getting pulled back into old patterns. Be aware and ask yourself, what would choosing strength look like for me this year, and what does my body need more of, not less of? And it's, I'm not talking about more exercise and more running and more, things like, but maybe more grace, maybe more fuel may be, less restriction. Think about that, right? We've already lived through one era of shrinking ourselves down and we do not. Need to go back there. So 2026 gets to be different and I would love for you guys to join me. this is really the heart of what we love to do inside the Real life runners team, is teaching people how to fuel their bodies, how to train in a way that is going to make them stronger, help their performance, and then also help them stay strong as long as. They want to stay strong, right? Fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and beyond nineties. Let's do it. so let's go. Who's in you in?

Kevin:

Yeah, let's go for it. I want to be a strong 80-year-old woman.

Angie:

Fantastic. All right, you guys, as always, thanks for joining us. If this episode is helpful, please leave us a review on it or Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or share the episode with a friend and tag us on social media. If you wanna share it there too, so that more runners can find the podcast. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 443. Now, get out there and run your life.