How to build lasting wellness and redefine health with Ashley Fillmore

Ashley Fillmore [00:00:00]:

I got so exhausted and tired of battling through diets. Starting over every Monday, starting over every January 1st. Being so restrictive that I was going to bed, chewing sugar free gum, thinking about my next meal, not being able to enjoy vacations in life along with my health truly starting to deteriorate. Thinking back, I wasn't a mother then. Now in my late 30s, mom of two running a company, there's no way I could live like that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:33]:

I'm a small town kid, born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life. Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor and mentor. Seventeen years ago I founded a marketing consultancy and ever since, my husband JR and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you too. I'm Tiffany Sauder and this is Scared Confident.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:15]:

Hey guys. Welcome to another episode of Scared Confident. Today we're going to be chatting with Ashley Fillmore. Ashley has a special place in my heart because she and her husband are also doing their very best to navigate a two career family and a house with two girls. She has a bachelor's of science in exercise in nutrition. She's a certified personal trainer, a nutrition coach, a health educator with almost 20 years of experience. And her goal is to help women, particularly those of us who are over the age of 35, heal their metabolism, balance their hormones and embrace a life of health, happiness and self love. You guys know this is an important topic to me as I have declared I'm going to live to be 102 so that I can be sure that my youngest is well on her 62 year old self.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:57]:

Life is doing fine. So Ashley, thanks for joining me and this is a really, really important topic, particularly as we're at the top of a new year. So thanks for coming on.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:02:06]:

Yes. And thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm so excited to be here.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:10]:

So I if I were to read your bio to 22 year old Ashley, what part of it do you think she would be most surprised to learn?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:02:21]:

I think 22 year old Ashley would be so impressed that I'm where I am today. I know in my life there have been so many challenges and so many things that happened to me in the younger, my younger version I would say through my teens and my early 20s that I would think, wow, you go girl. Look at what you have accomplished for yourself when really it would have been a lot easier settling for less, not finishing school, not putting myself through the advanced certifications I did not. Starting my own business, becoming an entrepreneur when I had a six month old and a three year old daughter, and being able to say that I've done this on my own really does mean a lot. And I think it just shows. And I've proven to myself that this is what I want and it hasn't been easy. But I also think that just looking back at that older version, that you can truly, the younger version of myself, you can truly accomplish anything that you put your heart and your mind to.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:21]:

Is that like toughness and resolve and tenacity, Is that always part of who you were or do you think you've developed that as an adult?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:03:29]:

Yeah, so I think that's always really been a part of my genetic makeup. You know, growing up, my mom worked three jobs to make ends meet and she still struggled. She was a single parent, I'm an only child. So you know, it was really, really challenging. And I saw her struggle and fight for a better life and even with trying her hardest, it was really challenging. And then unfortunately, at 38 years old, she passed away. And so from the age of 15, I was on my own. And I did have love and support through my grandparents, but they were also just in a very difficult phase of life.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:04:04]:

They didn't have a lot of financial security, you know, they worked just blue collar jobs, really struggling to make ends meet. Social Security kind of was their livelihood. And so they were there for me emotionally, which I cannot tell you how much that helped me, in some ways even more than the financial support. But really I had the whole world laying in front of me and I had two choices. I could decide to look at my life as an opportunity to have a better future for myself, or I could use my life, which I had some really good excuses. Mother passing away at 15, living in poverty, not having a trust fund, not having anyone in my family that could really financially support me and just say, hey, what the heck? This is going to be my life. I'm going to throw the towel in and not move forward. But instead I didn't give up and I had to grow up really quickly.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:04:57]:

But I do think that it's really made me the woman I am today and has allowed for me to build my business and push through the natural ups and downs of entrepreneurship, motherhood, life, and still feel like there's so much beauty in the world and there's so much that I have to offer to my clients and to my family and friends.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:17]:

Ashley, thanks for sharing that. But I love the statement that you just said I had some really good excuses.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:05:24]:

Yeah.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:24]:

Why not to dot, dot, dot. And I think in so many areas of our life we can really have a lot of pride and anchor to those excuses because we have some really good ones. And I think what a powerful way to start this conversation as we talk about having kind of this no excuses relationship with our health. Because that's where it has to get to. Because if we're going to live big, full lives filled with people and businesses and opportunities and saying yes and pushing ourselves and all this richness that we want and we do it in an unhealthy vessel, it takes the exponent off of any opportunity in our lives because we just aren't physically able to deliver. So thanks for sharing that and I think that's a really powerful place to start this conversation. One of the other things I was thinking about, so in my other life I have this marketing agency and in, in marketing agencies, a lot of times there's this stupid saying called the cobbler's children have no shoes. This thing that, like, as a marketing agency, we do lots of marketing, but a lot of agencies don't actually do marketing for themselves because there's not enough time.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:35]:

And it's sort of like you never have to master the thing you do for others, for yourself in that business. A different podcast, we've done that at Element three, but that's a thing. But in the world of nutrition and health coaching, this is really a business where it cannot be that the coblished children have no shoes. Like, you have had to have mastered this for yourself first, for your physique to be believable, for your skin to be believable. Like, it is literally this aspirational business where you're not going to hire somebody who you feel like is behind you in your own fitness journey. Right. And so I wanted to read little, I know a couple sentences. I think it came from your website.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:13]:

And then I'll ask you a question about it and then I promise we'll get into the teaching part. But I love to kind of get a deep dive into people's stories in this way. So your story reads like this. I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to feel good in my clothes and in front of my husband. I wanted to be a great role model for my beautiful, impressionable girls. I wanted my energy back. I wanted to stop damaging my metabolism and finally balance my hormones.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:36]:

I wanted to be at peace with myself, not at war. I wanted to prioritize self love and finally get back to feeling like myself. What was happening in your life that kind of led up to this paragraph either being written or being sort of written in your mind? What was that crossroads where you were like, enough is enough is enough, right?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:07:59]:

So I think wrapping this back into the introduction, I really took my education really seriously and I put myself through my undergraduate degree and then my internship became my first full time job as a personal trainer and a nutritionist. And I worked with clients one on one. I really felt like, and this was a, this was my own belief, no one told me this, but I really felt like I needed to look the part. And so in my mind, looking the part was looking like the women I saw on magazines, all of the other personal trainers and oxygen and fitness and health magazines. And I really bought into that. And so from there I started to feel like I needed to go the extra mile and do more than anyone else was doing to look a certain way. And so I had this image of myself and I lost myself in that process. When I was in my early 20s, I had the hormones of a 45, 50 year old woman going through perimenopause.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:08:58]:

I had severe adrenal fatigue, I overtrained, I underate. My self worth was attached to the number on the scale. Life was great when the number was good, life was horrible when the number wasn't. I would diet, I would punish myself and I was really at war with myself and I had to hit rock bottom. And so a part of this journey for me first and foremost was working on the true root cause of why was I believing those lies. And also why did I feel like so much of my self worth and identity had to be attached to this external image. And you know, for a lot of us, and even with the women I work with today, you know, there's this desire to weigh what you did when you were in college or before you had your first child or on your wedding day or, you know, maybe you want to look a certain way because the lady that has the position in the company that you want to have the same position in looks this way. And sometimes we strive to look a certain way or weigh a certain thing and really it's more related to insecurities and our own personal self worth.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:10:07]:

And so I had to work on that. And so my journey of healing and really ending the war and battle I had with myself was realizing that, number one, I was so much more than a number. Number two, my ideal clients and the clients I was working with, they were going to value me regardless of if the scale set 100 pounds or 150 pounds. And really what mattered the most was being authentic to myself and truly being healthy versus talking the talk, but actually walking the walk. And so for me, my breaking point was having a hormonal profile again of a 45 to 50 year old woman being told that I wasn't going to be able to have children. I didn't even have a cycle at that point. Leading up having cycles, I had a lot of just irregular periods and lots of symptoms that I chose to ignore and continued to push my body. I got so exhausted and tired of battling through diets, starting over every Monday, starting over every January 1st, being so restrictive that I was going to bed, chewing sugar free gum, thinking about my next meal meal, not being able to enjoy vacations in life along with my health truly starting to deteriorate.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:11:26]:

Thinking back, I wasn't a mother then. Now in my late 30s, mom of two running a company, there's no way I could live like that. But I was somehow surviving through until it stopped working. And that's when I decided this is the end. I cannot approach my goals and this is not healthy no matter if I'm a double zero and £100.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:50]:

Where did you start? Day one of anything is very uncomfortable when you're beginning to create change. So where did you start? Did you tell somebody? Did you journal it? Did you use a lipstick and write it on your mirror?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:12:06]:

It started with my husband actually. You know, he definitely saw how bad things were getting. I was just so obsessed and could not live. I mean, when you start to live in this little bubble or box and stepping outside of it creates so much anxiety that you can barely function. That's a really good sign that there's a problem there. Because even if you have body composition goals, to lose weight, to build muscle, to balance your hormones, it should never feel that way. And the path that you walk should never look like the example I just gave for myself and for me, I think it was the realization that what I was doing wasn't working anymore. And to be honest, I was so tired physically and mentally.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:12:52]:

It's like every single notification or little alert on your car panel started to pop up. For me, the check engine, the oil is low, every your tire's flat and it's like, can you just continue driving like this, Ashley? And using this as the analogy, my body was the car and it was No, I cannot. And so I was actually in my car. And that's when I just remember crying my eyes out after an appointment. And it was the end of the road for me. I just knew. It's like, you know, the one straw that finally just breaks everything that I could not continue on like that.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:30]:

Well, I think that's a second great thing for us to pay attention to. The first one was I have some really good excuses. You know, we can have some really good excuses. And the second is looking at our lives and saying, what I'm doing is not working anymore.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:13:43]:

Yeah.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:43]:

And so if somebody is at that place where their health is either you are sort of on the extremes are dangerous to us in any place in our lives. This either complete abandonment of health of like, I don't even know where to start. It looks really confusing. I'm using humor to deflect the fact that I feel uncomfortable with myself. Like there's sort of that world and then there's this world of obsession that you are in. People are listening and saying, like, what I'm doing is not working anymore. And I know I deserve a better reality, a better life, a better truth, the ability to be present with the people that I love, to show up for myself in a way that's more authentic. I think that's a great segue into where I want to go next, which is like, let's learn together.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:14:22]:

Let's like dig in. Ashley and I know you work one on one with women. Do you also have a group coaching option? How does that look?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:14:30]:

Yes. So I do one on one work year round with women, and I'm fortunate to usually keep a very, very full roster year round. Since I moved my company online, I used to do this in person before I move things online. I do offer a group coaching program, but it's a very high level, high access, customized group coaching program. So I only offer that once a year right now because that is something that I pour so much of myself into and to do that really well in a group format for me in this season of life is once a year. So yes, perfect coaching and then one on one. Great.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:04]:

There's no wrong answer. I just was curious. So. So I told Ashley before we were prepping for this interview, I said, hey, one of the things we could do is sort of talk about your work. But I always think it's really interesting for us to see coaches sort of in the coaching environment and to like learn in real time together. And I'm on a continual health journey and I'll be as transparent as I can. And so I asked Ashley, would you do this sort of part of it where we learn together her process what it looks like and just use me as the student. So I'm going to pass the mic over to you, Ashley, but really, what would it look like if somebody started working with you or you can kind of.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:15:41]:

She doesn't know my sort of history that well. So let's just sort of start chatting and see what would it look like to work with you? And what are the questions maybe women can be asking themselves if they're not on a phone call with you? How do we sort of create a guide for them in this conversation?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:15:56]:

Right. So I think, number one, identifying that ideal client who would be the ideal woman to come into my world. So I do work with women 35 and older. I'd say on average, my average client is in their 40s, actually, maybe late 30s or mid-40s, somewhere within that range. I'd say late 30s, mid-40s. And they have tried a lot of diets. Maybe they've been a chronic dieter off and on throughout their life, 20s, 30s and into their 40s. Maybe not.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:16:25]:

Maybe they just hit a point in their life where they have done some stuff, but it just didn't work well for them. They lost weight, they regained it, they didn't like the way they were eating, but they weren't sure how they should be eating, so they did nothing anymore. They're unhappy with the way they look, but they're also paralyzed because they don't know what to do because what they, you know, used to do just isn't even working anymore. And it's like, oh, well, when I was in my 20s, this worked. When I'm not. When I was in my 30s, this worked. Why isn't this working anymore? And oftentimes that client that comes into my world, they also know that there is more to the picture. There is more to it.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:17:02]:

It's not just eat less, move more. And they know that that's not the truth and that is old school thinking. But they aren't sure what is the truth or how to go about doing it. Maybe they are curious about hormones or they're aware that they're not eating enough. And when they do eat more, they tend to gain weight really easily if something's off, but they just aren't sure how to fix it. That's my ideal client. So usually that woman's going to schedule a call with me and we're going to get on the phone and we're going to talk about her journey. If we're going to do a little bit of role playing and you being that client, I would ask you, hey, what are some of your goals? Where are you and what really inspired you to reach out to me? And this is where usually my client is going to tell me a little bit about them, their frustrations.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:17:49]:

Why are they here today? Because the one thing I will say the hardest part of this journey is setting up the free call. Even though it's free. It takes a lot of just, I'm not sure what word I'm looking for, but it takes so much to just say, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to set up this call. I'm going to get on the phone with this lady that I've heard on a podcast or I've read through an email or on social media. And so to do that, I always say, congratulations, you did the hardest part. From here, moving forward, it's going to be super easy for you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:18:20]:

Well, I think it's vulnerable and sometimes it's for the first time you've heard this stuff outside of your face. You know, it's like one thing for it to be rolling around in your head kind of privately. And I realize they're not recording these conversations with you, but it's like vulnerable to be like, you know, I'm probably you're the most screwed up thing you've ever seen is kind of what we all think whenever we go in and look for help in anything is like you've probably never seen this. And that's not true. I think, I think it's a way that fear sort of tries to keep us uncomfortable.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:18:49]:

And you're right, you have to be so brave. And I think that's the word that I was looking for. And it honestly forces you to push aside a lot of self doubt. And a lot of times as a woman, you may feel like you're a failure and it's all your fault. And the reason you're here today is because you done everything wrong and you've seen online and in magazines. It works so beautifully for everyone else. And this is again your perception. But on my end, I see this every day.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:19:16]:

And you're not broken and there's nothing wrong with you. And you know, it's really the approach that's where the problem is, not you personally. So we would start our call off by going over your goals and what you want it to accomplish. So the reason why this is so important is because the work we do is so customized to you. Although I have a framework that we will work you through based off of where you personally need to start, where you start, how you start, and the initial action steps we take are truly going to be tailored to where you are in your goals. And so if you just want to even give me a really quick rundown, maybe 30 seconds of hey, here are some of the things I'd like to work on. I can walk you through how we would get you started.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:01]:

Hey, it's Tiffany. If you've been listening to the show for a while and find yourself thinking, I just wish there was more good news, you can sign up for my newsletter. It's filled with my favorite products, recipes, tips, and stories to help encourage you as you build your life of. And the link is waiting for you in show notes.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:18]:

See you there. So I had a baby at 40, which is, you know, kind of like you say, like, my child. That was, like, a very relevant moment for me where I was like, okay, bouncing back from babies at the very younger ages that I had. This was a very different game. And it was during COVID and so we were all just sedentary, and it was like, holy cow. I'd never felt so old in my life, but I had. I was a very. In a busy, very, very busy season.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:20:43]:

I wanted to, like, go on the Biggest Loser and just go away for 125 days and not be the only thing. I got to work on that. That was just not what was going to happen. And so I started lifting. And so I've been doing that for four years, and I feel very strong, and I feel like I can push a lot of weight around in the gym now into this journey. I feel like I'm starting. I feel like the shape of my body is starting to get a little bit different than I maybe want it to be. Like, I just feel like bigger.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:21:07]:

I feel like maybe my diet is not trailered to my training. That feels maybe disconnected. And then I just turned 44, and I'm feeling in my gut that, like, there's just some foods I just can't. I don't feel the same way. I used to be able to eat sort of like a garbage can, and it was fine. I'm finding I'm like just have a little bit more sensitivity to foods I didn't feel before. So that's where I feel like I have a Rubik's Cube where, like, maybe two of the sides, like, are all yellow and all blue. And then like, a couple of the other Sides are like still scrambled.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:21:40]:

That's what I would say. That's where I feel right now. So I feel strong. I feel like I have energy for my life. But I feel a little bit like, should I be adding in some cardio? Is that like not good? Like you talk about like this confusion that sets in. I do feel a little bit of that. Like what do I do?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:22:00]:

Yeah.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:00]:

So then I just kind of do whatever I have time for, which is a reactive plan, not really a proactive one.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:22:06]:

Yeah, well, so I would say one. You, you have such an amazing foundation built. The fact that you're already strength training is amazing, especially for where you are and in your life right now. After the age of 30, you start, we all start, not just you. Anyone in this age range will start to lose musc muscle mass. So the fact that you have prioritized strength training is amazing. And for some women that come into my world, they have been doing cardio and hiit classes and orange theory and all the things and they're not prioritizing strength training. So you have a really great foundation built there.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:22:39]:

But a couple of things I would do. So number one was where you are. You have, is it four children.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:22:45]:

Okay.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:22:45]:

And your youngest is four. All right. So the first thing I would do, and this is just with my experience coming into play, is you're really busy. You have two companies, I believe. Right. Okay. You're married, you have four children once four years old and I have a six year old being the youngest. And you have a lot going on in your life.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:23:03]:

So the last thing you need is something else that's going to add more work to your plate. And I would say if I could get inside your mind, probably if you have any resistance to exploring options to help you feel more confident in your skin, because you mentioned I'm lifting weights, but I just kind of feel like my body's changing maybe in a way or changing the shape of it in a way that I don't necessarily like. I know that it's maybe to do with my nutrition, maybe I need to do some cardio. I'm just not sure I would say a part of the reason, if not all, the reason why you haven't explored options is if it's one more thing added to your plate, then that's going to be more time, more energy, more work you're going to have to do. And if this isn't your expertise, you're really going to have to double down on how to do it correctly. So that's going to take a lot more time. It's not just buying the food, it's not just figuring out your macros, it's making it work for your lifestyle. And so for my busy clients that are doctors, entrepreneurs, surgeons, all of the things we have to simplify this.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:24:08]:

So number one with you is we would simplify this and I would actually say you would be a candidate for one on one and not group coaching simply because of your lifestyle. You could potentially get lost in a group because that's going to make it harder for you to show up because you're going to have to take so much action yourself that it could be challenging if you're going through a busy season at work or a busy season with kids. And from my experience being a parent and an entrepreneur, it's always busy. So I think one on one where you can have someone take the driving wheel for you. For a lot of my women that are high achievers like you, that's challenging because they're used to wearing the hat, they're used to being the house manager, they're used to being the CEO. So giving over that power, they have to make sure that they're giving it over to someone that has experience, they are an expert and they're confident in that individual's ability to ensure that it's going to help them reach their destination and accomplish their goals. And so a lot of that's the trust factor and knowing, hey, do I really believe in this woman or her company and her ability to help me? And so for you, I would say you're a great candidate for one on one group coaching could be an option, but you're going to have to take so much action and so much of it's going to be in your court that you could end up getting overwhelmed and quitting. I've seen women do that, not because they don't care, but it's just too much.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:25:30]:

And so for you, we're going to look at action steps. Number one, I would want to see exactly what you're eating. And this is what we do with all of our clients. I would start you off in the repair phase because I would need to do a full metabolic evaluation, see how healthy your metabolism is, ensure that there's no underlying metabolic damage. We would figure that out within a week. A week if you log.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:25:52]:

So give people. Yeah, what does that mean? Because I think you see this, like my metabolism is broken. I think secretly all of us hope that's the answer. Like, oh, amazing. The carburetor needed replace, which makes no, admit. So what does that mean practically to sort of understand if somebody's metabolism is stuck, broken, I don't know, whatever the things are, because it feels very mysterious to me, honestly.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:26:14]:

Yeah, so metabolic damage is when your metabolism has downregulated from intentionally, chronically undereating or unintentionally chronically undereating for an extended period of time. The one week you were sick with the flu and you didn't eat enough, that's not going to cause metabolic damage. It is when you are consistently undereating. So let's think about that individual that's been dieting for years or even a year, and they've been living in a deficit on keto, chronically under eating, fasting all the time, maybe trying 21 day fixes or detoxes consistently, your metabolism will start to down regulate and burn fewer calories at rest. So with that individual, we all have a basal B, a basal metabolic rate, also known as bmr. That's how many calories your body needs to just sustain life, live, breathe, do the basic daily activities, not including exercise and movement. Though when you have metabolic damage, you're eating under your BMR for an extended period of time. 90% of the women I work with are doing that either intentionally or unintentionally.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:27:21]:

Maybe 90% of the women, let's say that 90%, 90%.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:27:26]:

Even if you're not intentionally aware of it, you are maybe not eating enough, you think that you are. But as women, we live in a culture today where we are rewarded for eating less. We are rewarded for being the person at the table that pushes the food away and doesn't clear our plate. You know, if we're at a dinner party and we're the ones getting a second serving of this, or we're asking for more, we're telling the waitress to bring an extra chicken breast, everyone at the table is going to be looking at us. And so in my culture, in my family and my just, you know, culture where I grew up, I was made fun of because I love to eat. And so all my life I actually grew up, which also contributed to my disordered thinking with body composition and eating, I should be eating less. Oh my gosh, Ashley, you want to go back for more? You have such a big appetite. You better watch that as you get older, it's going to catch up with you.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:28:20]:

Many of my clients have also been told that lie. And so you could be unintentionally undereating and not even aware of it. So metabolic damage is when your metabolism downregulates. Now this is a really great thing that your metabolism does and it's actually there to protect you. When you're not taking in enough energy, it's going to down regulate. It's almost like it's saving gas, if you want to think about the car analogy. And instead of allowing your body to utilize that energy for activity, muscle repair, muscle building, it's going to conserve it and hold on to it, convert it to body fat, hold onto that through adding more inches to your waist, to your hips, to your thighs, and then your body will be able to utilize that energy if needed later. But it's not going to support fat loss or fertility.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:29:09]:

So if you are trying to conceive or you're trying to lose weight and your metabolism is more in a downregulated mode, you're not going to respond to the diet. It doesn't matter how much cardio you do, how much you lift weights or how little you eat, that will actually make it worse. Your body is very aware of what you're taking in. And if you again are consistently under eating, metabolic adaptation is what it's called is going to happen. And that is when your metabolism will down regulate, conserve energy and that is when again, you're consistently eating under your bmr. But for many women, they're living in a deficit year round and they're not aware of it and that's contributing as well to the metabolic damage. So you want to make sure that you are eating at your maintenance caloric intake. We establish all of this in the repair phase.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:30:01]:

We determine if you have metabolic damage, we determine the severity of it, we determine what your BMR is, we determine what your TDEE is.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:10]:

So this is not a blood work.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:30:11]:

Thing, this is not. Now we can do blood work if you want to, but I am not one to want people to spend extra money right out of the date.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:20]:

No, I just cure. I'm just saying, I'm just sort of drawing out.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:30:23]:

You can tell all this by you logging accurately. Your intake assessment, your discovery call, conversation. All of that data is going to give me the information I need. But this is just the start. The magic happens after this, after this.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:30:41]:

This is the repair phase, right?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:30:42]:

And the repair phase. And then the next thing I would ask you is we would dive in deep about your monthly cycle. Are you on birth control right now? If you are, then we'll have a different conversation. If you aren't, we're going to talk a lot about your monthly cycle. Has it changed if so, what's changed about it? Every single month, you and I will start communicating about your cycle and how things are going. If there is ever a time where I suspect that there is perimenopause is occurring, your progesterone, your estrogen, your testosterone is dropping down. We'll chat about that, and we'll talk about your options on what you can do about it. It could be changing lifestyle habits.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:31:21]:

It could be you and I working together to ensure that you're getting enough to eat nutritionally, working on improving your food quality, changing your workouts, making sure you're not overdoing cardio and HIIT classes and things like that. But if we don't see improvement in a time frame that you and I agree upon, then the next step is going to be, are you open to doing a Dutch test so we can have a more holistic insight on your hormones, how they're functioning throughout the month, if cortisol has anything to do with this as well. And then we'll start to explore other options, too. If I feel like, hey, your periods are really irregular, they're either way too heavy, they're not coming frequently, you're not feeling well, you're not responding to any of the protocols, we'll go through all of that, too. But during that repair phase, we also will address any hormonal concerns you may have and create an action plan to ensure that's not going to hold you back.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:16]:

So for the lay people on the. Because I don't know what a Dutch test is, Is that like a panel?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:32:22]:

It's a urine test that you do. And so Dutch testing, in my opinion, is the most accurate way to have insight on your estrogen, your progesterone, and even taking a look at cortisol and just overall how those sex hormones are functioning. I feel like, personally, it's more accurate than a blood test. I know for myself, my hormonal imbalances didn't even pop up on the blood test my OB ran. But when I did the Dutch test, it was very apparent that I had extremely high cortisol, no progesterone, no estrogen, and my body pee on a strip.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:32:54]:

That you buy from Amazon, like, practically. How does this actually.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:32:57]:

The test comes to your home after we order it. It comes with everything you need. There are strips that you can either pee on and, or stick in the.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:33:04]:

Cup, but it doesn't, like, take a prescription like, like to get panels like blood drawn. I have to have a doctor prescribe that.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:33:10]:

Not for this tab. No.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:33:11]:

Okay.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:33:12]:

But within my company, in 2025, one of the things that we will do is we will be able to offer even more functional testing where we can start to do analysis of blood. We could do gut testing and go into even more than what I'm capable of doing now.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:33:29]:

Fascinating. I've never heard of that before. Okay, so let's keep moving. So this was. This is repair. All of this kind of this like understanding your cortisol level, your. Yeah, those are like the way your body's responding to stress, whether that be acute or just like life.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:33:45]:

Right.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:33:45]:

Understanding your gut health and then understanding your metabolic health based on how your body is responding to the protocols that it's given. That's kind of what we're doing in that first phase.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:33:56]:

That's correct. And to wrap up that phase, when you end that phase, you have a foundation built with strength training. You are aware of what you should be eating, how much you should be eating. You have a very clear action plan laid out for you. You have agreed to the necessary actions to take in a sustainable pace that works for you, and you are working on healing your metabolism, balancing your hormones. We're either doing it naturally through lifestyle, nutrition, exercise, or we've also decided to do some functional testing, combining the two for a more aggressive approach for that woman that actually wants the data and a definite yes or no answer. If there's a hormonal concern there, you have that foundation built. A part of the work we do is I lead you through, or an assistant coach leads you through every step of the process to ensure that you're doing well with implementation anywhere between two to five times a week.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:34:52]:

You're hearing from us, your coach, either it be me or someone else on my team. We're ensuring that you're tracking, we're ensuring that you're understanding things and we're making sure that you can actually do this. But a part of the first coaching call that takes place is you saying, yes, this is possible or no. Unfortunately, these are not things I can do. So you and I are together in this 100%. I'm the leader, you're the co pilot, you have a say. This is not a drill sergeant, but I'm the expert. I'm going to coach you through, I'm going to tell you what I think is best off best for you, and then we will go from there.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:35:31]:

But in that repair phase, that's what we're doing. No one wants to start in the repair phase because it's not the fast loss phase. It's not the phase yet where you are going to aggressively see changes. Now, some women do, especially those that have been chronically undereating, not eating the right foods, consuming a lot of fake, really unhealthy, highly processed foods, not strength training the right way. So some women do, but the results actually really come in the final phase, which is the results phase. The rebuild phase is really simple. The rebuild phase. You have a foundation established.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:36:06]:

You're consistently lifting weights three to four times a week following your Metabolic Fix customized program that you're either doing in the comfort of your home or the gym. You are eating enough, you have completed. If you needed to do a reverse diet to heal your metabolism, we have walked you step by step through that process. Your hormonal health has improved or has resolved and you're feeling a lot better. And we're keeping an eye on things. At that point, you're ready for the results phase, which this is the final phase where we work on a sustainable and healthy fat loss transformation, weight loss transformation, body recomp. So maybe you're happy with your weight, but you want to build muscle mass, you want to have more shape to your physique, or at this point you just want to learn how to maintain where you are from everything you've accomplished in the program so far.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:36:55]:

So how long does it take? That is intentionally kind of a dumb question because everybody wants it to take 30, 60, 90 days. And I know that's not the answer, but how long does it take?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:37:05]:

What's the I would say for the woman that fits all of the criteria of everything I mentioned about the ideal client, A minimum of six months. And this is if her metabolism is healthy. So let's say you come into the program, you're eating pretty much at maintenance caloric intake, your cycles are pretty regular. Overall, you feel good. You just need, you know, a customized touch on your programming. You need some help with your nutrition. You need to dial things. In six months, you'll be all the way through the full.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:37:33]:

The full process, meaning your transformation into maintenance and being able to graduate eating intuitively, knowing how to move forward on your own if that's something you desire. If you have underlying hormonal concerns or metabolic damage, it's going to take anywhere between, I'd say, 12 plus months to get you in a great spot. And that's being totally honest. I realize that's not going to sell programs and women don't like to hear that, but it's the truth. And so my goal to everyone listening in and my clients is to be honest, even if it isn't what you want to hear. But you know, I've been doing this for almost 20 years, have helped thousands of women at this point. And I will say if you have severe metabolic damage, a chronic diet or hormonal issues, potentially going through perimenopause, thyroid problems, or even more metabolic conditions, it is unrealistic to think that you're going to be able to accomplish a big goal of transforming your health and body in even three months. Let's not even go to the 30 days or 60 days.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:38:33]:

But this is a full on life transformation, not a diet.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:38:37]:

Totally. And I like to remind myself sometimes when I'm in a hole of lots of brands, I'm like, how long did it take me to get here? Like, usually a while, you know, so even a year, it's like, think about yourself a year ago, New Year's Eve, 2024, and here we are. How quickly that went. You know, summer seems like it was yesterday. Like all again. I'm like not even here to pitch a program, but it's like I have just learned my relationship with time as I've gotten older is a year is actually so short.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:39:09]:

Yeah.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:39:09]:

To like see meaningful progress in your business and your family culture and your capacity and your health. Like, it's actually such a short period of time.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:39:19]:

So anyways, Tiffany, before we move on, you cannot undo years of dieting in three months, in six months. That is very unrealistic and that is a misconception that's out there. It takes years to correct the damage. So if you've been doing this for a year or two years, or dieting for six years, 12 years of your life or longer, to expect to be able to change all of that and correct all of the damage in three months or six weeks or even six months is unrealistic.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:39:52]:

Yeah, totally. Okay. Amazing. Ashley, thank you for sharing all that with us. I learned a lot in that conversation. So I like to always kind of end with this idea of how do I take something from your two career family and hand that or you know, busy household to other busy households, two career families that are listening right now, working women trying to balance it all. And you recently went through a lot of change. You moved your family to Florida and then there was two big hurricanes that came through right where you live.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:40:23]:

So how do you keep yourself a priority? How do you keep your health front and center? How do you and your husband support each other in that? How do we do that when life bring storms?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:40:34]:

Yeah, I think this is such a great question. And I know recently with, you know, recording in real time in the month of October, we went through two really massive hurricanes here in Florida. And it was just catastrophic for the communities here. You know, fortunately we weren't directly impacted, meaning our home didn't flood or blow away or anything like that, but we were still seeing people in communities very close by losing everything that they own. And it's truly a natural disaster. And it's very sad to be a part of and witness, But I will say with all of us, we have our own hurricanes in our life. Either a natural disaster or, you know, something scary happened with our health or with someone we love or a job change or a big move or whatever it may be. And so we do have to be able to adapt.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:41:24]:

And so now being in this season of life where I am at peace with myself and I do prioritize my hormonal health and my physical health and fitness and all of that, I really have to approach things differently. And for me, it's really looks like prioritizing myself, even though I have a million excuses and reasons not to. I'm running a business, I'm working full time. I have a six year old, I have a nine year old, my husband works long days. We live in a state where we don't have family here. There's a million reasons for me to say I can't work out, I can't eat healthy, I can literally find myself in a glass of wine every night because there's all the things happening and I need to unwind. Now, I'm not saying that in a way to where I'm passing judgment because I've had my struggles with nutrition and many things in my journey. If anything, I'm shining the light to say, I see you and I know what that's like.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:42:15]:

But we have to choose better for ourselves because if we want to show up in our family life, if we want to show up for our kids, if we want to show up for our companies or for our jobs, we have to prioritize ourselves. But the mistake we make as women is trying to do everything at once. We don't have to do it all. And sometimes it is hiring a coach or a professional to break it into baby steps for you to make it more doable. Sometimes it's having a hard talk with yourself or your partner or husband and saying, I need your support. We have to tag team this. We have to make this doable for us. I need to do less right now.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:42:52]:

How can I offload some of this. How can I make this easier? Because taking care of your mental health, taking care of your physical health is critical. Your body is always talking to you. We can either choose to ignore or we can choose to act. And we will all have to act at some point. We will all reach a breaking point. But I encourage you to act before you reach that breaking point. If you're neglecting yourself right now because work and life is crazy, if you are not eating well or you're finding yourself eating the ice cream every night or drinking the wine every night, you don't have to change everything.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:43:29]:

But start with one thing today. Start doing little things to support yourself. Be happy to give examples if you want it and ask for help. I was so embarrassed to ask for help in my life. Either it be babysitters, nannies, house cleaning, whatever. I felt ashamed of that, like I should be able to do it all. But I also realized I can't do it all. And that's actually very unrealistic and unhealthy to think as a woman, as a mother, as a wife, as an entrepreneur that I should be able to do everything at a hundred percent.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:44:03]:

So that's really helped me. Asking for support, having hard conversations with myself now some days it will look like a 30 minute walk and that's it. Like for today I had a big workout planned. I woke up a little tired, a little more exhausted, had a big weekend with the kids and parties. And I said, you know what? Today honoring myself isn't going out there and pushing through that workout and just, you know, white knuckling my way through. It's sleeping in a little more, having a slower morning and going for a walk before I start my work day. That's what self care can look like. Self care could be putting your phone down and getting in bed by 9:00.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:44:46]:

It could be taking a bubble bath and sometimes it is going out there and doing that workout because you know that you need it. Eating a nutritious meal, those are all just examples of you showing up for yourself.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:44:59]:

Ashley, this has been an awesome conversation. I think that understanding that we deserve to feel good for our life so that we can live fully inside of our life of and I think is really important. And you've shared some awesome, I think practical tips and if someone is interested in learning more or reaching out to you, what is the best way for them to do that? And we'll provide the links also in show notes. But how can they do that?

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Ashley Fillmore [00:45:22]:

Well, thank you again so much for having me on your show today and the best ways to connect with me is going to be number one. My podcast. I have a podcast. You were on it which I'm so excited to have that episode come out. Name Cheers to Your Success. We talk about all things related to hormonal health, metabolic health, exercise, mindset, mom life, all of it. It's a really great way to connect with me every single week on Instagram. I'm always hanging out.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:45:48]:

At ashley_ fillmore1 and I know you'll link everything up. And then I also do offer one on one coaching year round. It's by application only. If someone would be interested in learning more about how to work with me, learn more about my program and how I serve my clients.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:46:05]:

Amazing. Ashley. My quick takeaways from our conversation. Even the best excuses are not good ones. What I was doing was not working anymore. If we're at that moment in our lives, it is our intuition getting our attention that we need to make some changes. And the third is lasting progress always takes time. Thanks for joining me.

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Ashley Fillmore [00:46:25]:

Thank you.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:46:27]:

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling Fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:46:36]:

I will.