Time Is On Our Side w/ Le Bergin Head Trainer For FASTer Way To Fat Loss
Kylie:
This episode with Le Bergin, is another episode that is going to leave you feeling so inspired. I wanted to talk to Le for the longest time because she and I are in such alignment in terms of our training and nutrition philosophy. Both of us understand that this is a never ending journey. As Le brilliantly put it, it's like a balloon with a hole in it. You have to constantly keep filling it up because there's a little hole that's letting air out.
Kylie:
Settle in, everyone, and get ready to keep doing this. It's kind of like that song, the road goes on forever, but the party never ends. Same thing. So you get a dose of Le's cleverness. I think she has a way of delivering her message that is very easy to digest. She is so down to earth, I trust her so much. I just wanted you to have another voice, another voice reinforcing the right way to go about reaching your goals as it pertains to physique goals, weight loss goals and, honestly, life in general. Settle in, get ready for some fun. And if you want to stay in touch with Le, you can find her on Instagram @serious_le_bergin. Of course, if you want to reach out to me, if you have any follow up questions, let me know, and I will get you guys in touch. Enjoy.
Kylie:
Okay, you guys, I am so excited today because I have the most amazing person on the podcast. Her name is Le Bergin, and several of you already know her because quite a few FASTer Way to Fat Loss clients do listen to this, and I'm so happy about that. You guys know Le as the head trainer for FASTer Way. Well, I'll never forget the first time I met Le and I was like, oh man, this girl is the real deal. I instantly fell in love with her. She's super authentic. She is who she is, and she inspires me. Every time I listen to her stories on Instagram, I just am like, preach. Preach girl, preach. And it's hard to find people like that, for me, that I really believe what they're saying. And you are that person. So Le, thank you for being here.
Le Bergin:
Kylie, I've got to say the same thing about you. I was super nervous to meet you because I'm like, oh, she's got all these friends. She's so popular. Then as soon as I met you, it was the same thing. I was like, oh, here's my sister from another mister, for sure. I mean, we just align, we've got the same philosophy. And you are just so authentic, and you can say fuck when you're not supposed to. It makes me laugh, and you're great at what you do. So, I'm just super proud and happy to be here. So, thank you.
Kylie:
Well, thanks. And it seems like I have a lot of friends, but I don't. I have a lot of acquaintances.
Le Bergin:
That's true. That I know. I'm right there with you. Yes. It's quality, not quantity, followers, let me say that.
Kylie:
Well, and I also have to tell you, I don't know, for whatever reason, I mentioned this before, I like working with a male trainer. There's two women I would train with. One of them is you, hands down. I tell everybody that. I'm like, if you haven't met Le, she is the shit, man. She knows what she's talking about. You just have that energy. I feel like you really know how to motivate people.
Le Bergin:
Well, they motivate me, you're the same way. We feed off of people's energy. There's a challenge with someone who doesn't have very much energy, that makes you want to attack even harder. When I find somebody who has the same vibration, kind of, as you do, then it just electrifies every single thing. So, it's challenging. I'm the same way. I only want to train with a male trainer. And I think a lot of the reason is because it seems like they walk the walk a little bit more than women like you. It's very rare to find someone who walks the walk, who's also not an asshole. There are a lot of women who are so vain and they're so consumed with that because they probably have some killer genetics, and they probably just kind of woke up just, it was natural for them. A lot of it came from vanity, but I think that my work didn't come from vanity. It just came from, just produce the effort and see what happens. It just makes us a little bit more relatable, I think.
Kylie:
I agree 100%. I forgot for just a second until we were just talking. You've had quite the background, because you used to be a high school teacher, right?
Le Bergin:
Yes, yes, yes. I was a high school teacher. My mission has always been to help people kind of find the light bulb. I was a loser in high school. I mean, I barely graduated with a 72 average. I was hanging around all the wrong people, but my family was a little bit crazy, so I just wondered like, where in high school was someone that ever called me out? Where was my accountability? Where was the person that was like, "Wait a minute, girl. You need some attention." I always just wanted to be that person for somebody, I wanted to find the one who was invisible. I wanted to find the one who was struggling. I wanted to do that. I'm still teaching, it seems like adolescents a lot of times., it's just a different subject. Always looking for that person who, they just need some attention and they need to know that everything that they're doing is one step in the right direction if they're just trying.
Kylie:
Oh, that's amazing. So when you were a teacher, was that when you were running more or were you into physical fitness?
Le Bergin:
Yes. I was on the dance team all through college. When I graduated high school, literally, I think I got into college because my grandfather pulled some strings and I was a good dancer. I was like, oh, snap, I better put on my brain and see what happens. Once I started to apply myself, then I graduated with the Dean's list. It was just like, oh, I have something I can apply. I said, well, dance team was over so I was just going to run, I guess. I was doing the aerobics. I just ran, and then I just ran, and then I ran, and I ran.
Le Bergin:
It was a quiet place for me. I guess I'm a little bit of a kinesthetic learner, I've got to kind of be active. So, I just started running. It was kind of like my church, and then it never stopped. I ran. Oh my gosh, I ran. When my kids were little, I remember Ellie was four and Roy was three, I was pushing them 11 miles in a double jogger a couple of times a week, at least.
Kylie:
Oh, my gosh.
Le Bergin:
Crazy. And then I did some competition, some triathlons, and then I would just race five Ks and halves all the time, like racing. I was pretty obsessed with it. It was just performance. It was my project, and I liked being fast.
Kylie:
Were you one of those people that has ran like 24 marathons? Was that your distance at all?
Le Bergin:
Nope. Great question. I ran a marathon, just the one. I'd only run 16 miles. I was with my kids' dad. We were training for it, and then we got 16 miles and kind of just blew it off. Then all of our friends signed up for it, and he was like, "Well, we still have to do it." And I go, "Well, dude, it's like in a week. We've just been running our 5 and 10 miles." So I ran as someone's name, like Jeniqua or something, and his name was like Kardashian. And literally, we had to buy the bibs on Craigslist because the race was sold out, the Houston Marathon.
Kylie:
Oh my God.
Le Bergin:
We ran that race. I was like, "We are not going over 11 minute miles." We had our Garmins on. So that was the one marathon I did. Bucket list, done. Don't need to do it again. That was the other thing too. I know my nature is to always try to kind of beat myself. The marathon was never on my bucket list, but once it happened, it was pretty painful and uncomfortable. It wasn't safe. And I never want to do that again. I'm a quit while I'm ahead kind of a person. That's why I never tried CrossFit. I was like, oh, don't you even get me started. I didn't even go. I've never even been to Joe Box one time. I'm not even going to try it, because I know I'll go crazy. Then I stopped. I stopped running as fast as I started. I was like Forrest Gump. I was in there, one day I stopped, like straight up. I just stopped.
Kylie:
That's amazing. So then, is that when you got into strength training, the day you were like, "Okay, I'm done running, I'm trying to go to the weight room"?
Le Bergin:
Yep. So the running was something that my ex and I did together for, gosh, 15 years. I think I was like 35, something like that, 33 or 34, and going through the divorce. I think because I was tying so much of my emotional stress with that part of my lifestyle, I wanted to stop everything. Right then I had just become a personal trainer so that I could kind of still be a stay at home mom with my kids. I was teaching Tae Bo. I was teaching Tae Bo at a church. I was training with Billy Blanks for a few years, kind of. That was my fun dance, let's call it my dancing time still because I still had that in me.
Le Bergin:
I was teaching Tae Bo, and then I was working at this gym. Then through the divorce, I was just so weak and I could not figure out, and I did not want to freaking run again. I was like, I'm out. I just couldn't. I just said, well, let me treat myself as a new trainer, new trainers are terrible. New teachers are terrible, because they want to be everything, but they haven't experienced anything. I treated myself like I would treat a new client. I hired a trainer and I was like, well, what can I learn and how can I apply? How can I be my very best client? And I just focused on just, okay, well here's a bar, pick it up, put it down. Okay. Do that 19 more times. Okay, next, let's pull a little bit more. Let's put some weight on the bar.
Le Bergin:
Literally after a year, and I knew nutrition was a big part of it. I drank way too much alcohol. That was a lot of fuel for my running. I just said, let me just eat to perform. Then I looked in the mirror after a year and was like, wow, look at those traps. Like, it wasn't on my agenda. I was so focused on getting through this divorce, getting my kids, getting a job, just move, get strong, get strong, get strong, get strong. I was like, that was a cool thing too. So many women are trying to do the work to look a certain way, where I didn't care how I looked. I just wanted to feel a certain way. The side effect of trying to find that feeling is whatever I have on my body now.
Kylie:
I've heard that from a couple people of too, that once they stopped training for a certain look and were basing their training off of a feeling, that's when actually the results started to come. And I was like, that's really powerful.
Le Bergin:
Right, and again, don't get me wrong. Vanity is there. I mean, I'm still buying shorts that fit. Don't get me wrong, I wear makeup and do those things. But, to have that whole focus just not be so consuming. Because I've been there too, where I have been so focused on a look or something. Then as we go through, when you just start lifting for the performance and your body to shape into its shape, I'm like, okay, I don't have a small waist. I do have bigger shoulders. I don't have very developed quads. You see where these weaknesses are, even though I was training them all. I just was like, here's where some of my lagging body parts are, and I just want to make sure I'm balanced.
Kylie:
Absolutely. I got to get this timeline down.
Le Bergin:
I know. I know.
Kylie:
33, 34. Are you still teaching school while teaching Tae Bo?
Le Bergin:
Great question. No, I stopped teaching school when I had the children. Long story short, I was teaching in Texas, and I was in teaching in New Jersey. And my kid's dad is a pilot for, then it was Continental. We were in the middle of September 11th. I didn't have any kids yet, we ended up living in Costa Rica for half a year. He had to take a leave of absence. I mean, it was a big, big, big thing. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally, we went back to New Jersey again, after I quit teaching to go kind of nurture our mentality.
Le Bergin:
Then, got pregnant with Ellie. Then he got laid off right before she was born. When he got laid off, it was crazy. Again, long story, went back to Texas and I stopped working to be a stay at home mom. He didn't have a job. So, after another year of him flying privately, then he got back with Continental. Then I had my second baby. I didn't have to work. We were fortunate, butI knew I would go back to this classroom. We ended up moving to Galveston, and the kids were still little. I said, I've got to do something. That's when my aunt taught with Billy. My aunt? That sounds like she's so old. Then she was like 40, oh my God.
Kylie:
I can imagine.
Le Bergin:
Oh my God. She was training with him and was in his videos and stuff. She said, "Come out there with me and meet him and try," and I was like, "Oh God. Okay." My son was nine months old. I haven't been back in the classroom. I taught for about seven years, I guess. I was teaching just on and off, Tae Bo. Then a hurricane hit. I mean, all the kind of junk. Then a hurricane hit, tore the gym down, took the kids school away. Then after the hurricane was when I went to the gym to become a trainer. That was when I got a divorce. That was in 2010, maybe. So now I'm 33, 34 at that time. I stopped teaching 28, or 30 to 34-ish, kind of in that time.
Kylie:
Oh, that's so great. One of the things that's a recurring theme, and it's not even on purpose, with this podcast is people totally changing. You were a school teacher and then you were a personal trainer and teaching Billy Blanks' Tae Bo classes. I only wish, the only regret I have in life is that I have never been in one of your Tae Bo classes. I know I would rock that class so hard.
Le Bergin:
You would. You've been in a variation of them. Yeah, just that music pumping, and nothing's choreographed, it's just such a free flow of the mind and feeling the room. It's the best, still. I mean, that is the one exercise that has endured through running and through weight lifting, is that Tae Bo.
Kylie:
Dude, not to get off on a tangent. I used to teach group fitness full time. I don't miss it, because it's really hard and draining, but I do miss a full class, going with the music and all of that. You can't beat that.
Le Bergin:
You're at the best club ever.
Kylie:
Yeah. That's so true. So 33, 35 is when you started strength training. I know you guys can't see Le right now. Her physique is amazing and beautiful. She has the glutes of a goddess. One of the reasons I want to talk to her today is because she and I are what I like to call adults, because we are over 40. I feel like there's a lot of benefit to working with a woman, a person who is older, because we do have that experience. You've been through the kids, you've been through work transitions. . It's so funny you say this, I just signed up for another training, and it's a mindset thing. All the people who are introducing themselves are like brand new baby trainers. I felt very confident all of a sudden because you're right, experience is on our side.
Le Bergin:
Experience is on our side. Just like you said, the mindset. So much is trying to be achieved by women who are looking for a quick fix. They're looking for whatever their goal was when they were younger. Well, that girl is gone. They're looking for a feeling that they had at a different time. A lot of times people don't embrace the moment in time that they're in. I get so, so, so, so sad and so frustrated when people are like, "I just can't figure out how to start." The way to start is just to wake the fuck up. Just wake up. Wake up, look around, and make an assessment. What do I have? What do I want? What is the one little change that I can do to get there?
Le Bergin:
Again, my college professor told me I was going to change careers five times. I was like, really? Then what am I doing sitting in this class? I've got a major for a reason. Five times a career change. No one says that you're going to go through five different stages and more in your life. I can't find anyone that can raise their hand and say, I'm finished. Anybody who joins a six week, a 12 week, a one year, a 21 day, a five year program, needs to understand that that program doesn't end. That program is intended to teach you how to apply what you've learned for the rest of your life. There's nothing wrong with finding different programs and different people that you chemically connect with, and be motivated and inspired by them. At the end of the day, you're going to wake up alone, and you got to know that you've done everything for yourself that you possibly can and not wasted one day.
Le Bergin:
That time wasting, and being through September 11th, and being through all these different moments where you're like, holy shit, I'm almost out of time. That sense of urgency kind of comes in, and then the dust settles, the deep breath comes, and you go, okay, let's set the pace for this long road. Mourning the end of running, literally crying about it. I tried a couple of times and was like, man, it's gone. It's just gone. I'm like, oh God, one day am I going to just mourn the day that I stop lifting weights? No. What I did was, I got inspired by you to become more flexible, to find another layer in the weight lifting that I have done, to again, add more to that repertoire. I really want to do a toe touch. I just can't. I really want to do like 10 pull ups, I'm just still working on the one. Little things, you know what I mean? That kind of just, how do you layer your progress? People who can't layer any progress if they haven't even primed at this space yet.
Kylie:
Oh, I never even thought about it like that. You do have to prime the space. What do you suggest someone does when they don't know what to do, where to start? Because it is overwhelming. We are so lucky because we did prioritize our health and our wellness. We're not sitting there, 50 pounds overweight. But what do you do when someone comes to you and they're just so desperate? What do you say to them?
Le Bergin:
Right. The other good thing too, I did used to be a smoker. I did used to be a drinker. I've had lifestyle characteristics that were definitely not going to produce the best me that I am right now. Being there and knowing what that's like, and knowing that you can kind of be at a rock bottom, even though you might not be overweight, and you can be a very healthy, overweight person, you just have too much fat. There's a lot of different variations in it. When someone just, it just needs to get started. You and I are tracking macros. We use tools to track their fats, proteins and carbs.
Le Bergin:
People need to just, like I said, first things first, assess where you are. Okay. Where am I? What is my lifestyle I have right now? I heard someone say, "If you're going to pick a time to move your body to exercise, say, okay, I'm going to work out five days a week at seven o'clock every day. Can you end that sentence with, I'm going to work out five days a week, every day at seven o'clock forever? If you can end it with forever, then you're good to go. If you can't say forever, then let's think about what can you really do?" First things first, just move. Just get up and move. Sometimes that fresh air can really be a benefit. Laying on the ground, rolling around in a horizontal bootcamp, stretching, can really create some oxygen that's just going to fill your brain. Just taking that time to celebrate that, look, everything is working.
Le Bergin:
That's number one. Just start moving. Sometimes when you start moving, you're able to say, okay, now what is the fuel that's creating this movement? Am I getting the benefit out of this movement? I always say, it's just like trying to feed a plant with an eye dropper. You're never going to have anything bloom unless you get the soil rich. So you just have to understand. Then be willing to educate yourself and be willing to sacrifice a year of learning, because you've sacrificed 20 of crying about it. Can't you give me just one year to really commit to learning how to change your life? If you can do it at 40, imagine what the year of 42 will be like.
Kylie:
Wow. Oh, that's so true. We really do have to play that long game. I love what you're saying. Can I get up at 07:00 AM and work out five days a week forever? That particularly applies to the way that you eat. You and I both know very low calorie diets aren't the way to do it. We're all for physique goals. You can go on a fat loss phase, but there's a way to go about it. Cutting out whole food groups is not. You can't do that for the rest of your life.
Le Bergin:
Your body doesn't respond to it like it used to. It used to be really resilient. Now it doesn't want to play anymore. It doesn't want to play that game. Then the frustration is just overloading. Teaching people how to eat and going, "Okay, we're going to feed you for a year. We're going to enrich your soil for a year before you're going to get one little tiny bud. But again, how do you communicate time when they're still thinking about, okay, it's still 2020, I'm still working on my new year's resolution. Well, it passed up again.
Le Bergin:
I know you know the same clients. I've got clients I've had for 10, 15 years. And I'm like, "Why are we having the same conversation?" You can't say, oh, well, she just doesn't want it bad enough. No. It's really hard. It's really hard. So much of it comes from your mind and your heart and committing to a plan, and also giving yourself time within that year to go, okay, cool. I kicked ass for six weeks. I'm going to take a two week break. When I come back in two weeks, just because I don't track doesn't mean I'm going to eat all the things and do all the things. I'm just going to try to practice what I did without tracking and see if I do okay. Because in two weeks, I'm not going to lose six weeks of progress. Just kind of giving yourself permission to, once a quarter, let go. Do you do that? Do you let go of the wheel sometimes?
Kylie:
Oh, absolutely. When I get busy with work, just like you, I know how to eat. I don't need to put it in MyFitnessPal to know. Sometimes it's just one more thing. I think people should do that too without sneaking, going off of the rails. But you can do that. You have to trust yourself. That's something else, you have to trust yourself and trust your body that it will respond. I think that's another part of it too. I'm a little out there, and I'll write down my morning affirmations, which has really been helping. I always say, I trust my body. I trust my body to respond the way that I want it to. I know that it will. In my heart of hearts, I know that it will. It's only my brain that's getting in the way of me thinking it's not going to. I know that a lot of women are like that. Well, that reverse diet. No it won't work for me, it won't work for me. It will.
Le Bergin:
I know. The other thing is, what else are you going to do? You're going to go back to SlimFast?
Kylie:
Right? What else are you going to do?
Le Bergin:
What else are you going to do? Because again, try all the things, call me in six months when they don't work, and then we'll have the same conversation again, which you could have had six months of just education. Again, it's just practice, but here's the other thing too, Kylie. I think that you and I are so fortunate because there are so many competing programs and companies out there in which women are really trying to cut the legs out from each other when there are other trainers.
Le Bergin:
For you and I to be able to collaborate, and for what you've done for us and what, hopefully, I can do for you, we're collaborating for all women. We are teaching the same class, using different textbooks with the same information, literally, and finding women who really have the best interest in other women. It doesn't happen very often. Whenever we do find each other like that, we have to just shout from the rooftops that we are here for you. I had a client the other day reaching out to you, and you're telling me, "Look what she said." I'm like, "Oh my gosh. Like, we're saying the same thing."
Kylie:
Same exact thing.
Le Bergin:
I'm not telling you that secret that Kylie. No, we're telling you the same thing.
Kylie:
We're telling you the same thing. I know whenever anyone reaches out to me like, "Well, did you do what Le said to do? Then that's what you should do."
Le Bergin:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. You said it one time, and I wrote it wrong. I copied what you said, but you were like, what did you say? You said, go ask your mom, and then your dad says, no. It happens all the time. Again, my husband and I share the same clients many times. They're like, "Well, Peter doesn't call it that. You call it a burpee and he calls it military." I'm like, "Are you kidding me?"
Kylie:
Either way, I want you to do 10 of them. Shut up.
Le Bergin:
Yeah. Just not be able to talk because you're working so hard.
Kylie:
I agree with you. I just want women to get the right information. I don't care if you're getting it from me or from Le or from somebody else on Instagram, as long as it's the good information. Because honestly, I figured out why I do what I do. I just don't want anyone to have to go through what we had to learn the hard way. There's no reason. Now we know better. So just take our advice.
Le Bergin:
Totally. That's the other thing too, back to that walk the walk. That's why I trust you because, again, without making aesthetics be a thing, but you have a super strong, powerful, beautiful body with the spirit that goes along with it. I know you're not starving, because you'd be super crabby. You know what I mean? I know that you are very strong and limber, and I want to have those things. Again, this is for the longevity so that I can play with all the little children that I don't have around me. But whatever, I want to be able to be spry.
Le Bergin:
My daughter, she was on a walk the other day and they sent me a picture of a big mirror that someone was throwing away. She was like, "I want to get this mirror and we'll pick it up." I don't know what that damn thing was made out of, lead. I go down there to meet her and I'm like, "Oh my God." It was probably a hundred pounds. I'm just like, ooh. I get it upstairs, three flights upstairs. She was like, "Mom, you're so strong." I go, "I don't work out for any other reason, but to just carry stuff. I need you to start working out so you can pick up your own trash like the mirror that we just found. Pick up your own trash." She's 17. And she was like, "Huh? Like, you're not really." I'm like, "I worked out to look a way. All that, yes, that's there. But man, to be able to help you with this, that's living."
Kylie:
That is living. When the gym shut down, we got this treadmill because I was like, I got to still get my steps in. That fucker was so heavy. The delivery guy would not take it downstairs. Now I know why. So Pat and I, Pat, my husband and I, we had to take that thing downstairs. I told him, "You are so lucky that I am your wife, because I guarantee you, she, across the street, could not do this. There's no way."
Le Bergin:
Functional fitness is.
Kylie:
It was so heavy and it was so hard. I was pretty much crying, but we got it down there. What does your training look like? You don't back squat because of, is it the knees?
Le Bergin:
Oh my gosh. It's so crazy. I'm like, what is wrong? Yes. Now this is, again, me being stupid new. I knew my progression and I was like, I just need to get 225. I gave myself a year to do it. I was like, oh, this is so easy. I'm doing five pounds a week for two weeks. This is so easy. It was December 14th, girl. I was close, and nothing felt wrong. Again, I'm videotaping myself. I'm looking at myself. I just have an abnormally long femur. I think that there was a little millimeter somewhere. I stood up. I was fine. Everything was fine. I was so happy. It was two reps. I was like, okay, we're coming back next week. Then I went and sat at a party, like on a bar stool and my legs were just kind of dangling. I stood up, and one just never straightened again.
Kylie:
Oh no.
Le Bergin:
I was damned if I was like, I'm not going to the doctor. I'm not going doctor. I could round house and straighten it to the side. I could lay on my back. I could straighten it. It didn't straighten for maybe four months. I was freaking out, I was teaching boot camps. I was teaching probably 15 classes a week. I was like, I'm not going to do any research because the interweb is all lies. I'm not going to look. I'm just going to just put my mind into my muscle and find out where in my hips is the problem. My husband's like, if you have a dashboard syndrome, like, you know something about my knee, I just shouldn't have been squatting. I just shouldn't have been squatting that heavy. My quads are very, very weak. They just never grow. My dad never has quads. Just don't.
Le Bergin:
I literally, for a year, one of my girlfriends, this is how I got seriously. She was like, "I'm just going to call you butt, seriously, because you literally are the only person that can make a butt happen without a lunge." I was like, "I did buns of steel. I can do anything on my hands and knees." Oh, and then it got better. It was like seven months later. I was like, okay, I can extend it. I was really tender. I had it all wrapped. I go to a yoga class and I'm thinking, look, I'm in my crow, I bet I could shoot my feet out from here into a plank, and then I think I can do this. As soon as I shot them out, it happened again. Force. I was like, why? I was like, hmm. I don't know if it's a patella. If it's a AC, if it's a MC, PC, all of it's bad.
Le Bergin:
Then I had to be on the cover of this magazine. I'm like, I got one leg short, like I got a little skinny leg. What am I going to do about this leg? I was just a mess. I was like, single leg wall sitting. I was doing all of these isometric things. I'll be damned if I didn't rehab that fucker by myself. I can do anything. I just refuse to get surgery. I still have to kind of be very ginger with it. I can do some stuff at a Smith machine if my feet have to be a certain specific way. I call that experience. It's not an injury, it's just an experience thing. It's a trick maybe I can use for a party. I still am like a little bit nervous. I'm here, loving my job, I'm like, oh my gosh, the last thing I need you to do is get hurt, then I'm going to lose my job.
Le Bergin:
The performance now is about maintenance, not about crushing a specific weight. So can I maintain this, that's the thing. I brought my workouts back to that. Someone said, "Gosh, you must work out all the time." I don't. I did. to get this, it was about three, maybe four years. I was specific. I was on a program. Teaching classes isn't my workout. People are like, "Oh my gosh, you work out all day." I'm like, "No, you work out all day. I just tell you how to do it." Really specific, maybe three years, maybe four, something along those lines. Really intentional. Then I just got busy, but then I would just come back. I've got some specific lifts every three months, maybe six weeks. Can I do that lift about five or six times? If I can, great. If I can't, there's cellulite. It's just a cause and effect.
Le Bergin:
Without this COVID thing, three months out of the gym, again, not going fast. It's taken me eight weeks to get. I'm 10 pounds away from my lifts that I were before moving out to Florida in December. I'm like, okay, I'm close, just to get that back. Now it's just about maintenance. Once your body has that muscle in there, it knows what to do. You don't have to recreate it. Those fibers are just sitting there sleeping. You just have to kind of wake them up again. But thats maintenance. Maybe I train maybe four hours a week on my own, maybe. No cardio.
Kylie:
Yeah. I was just telling my monthly group, I'm very proud of myself because this is the first time in my life where I'm legit not doing any cardio, like these last two months. That's a huge thing considering our background, because it was really hard to let go of even just like that 30 minutes.
Le Bergin:
Real quick.
Kylie:
Why? Because I thought I needed it. But I don't. So I'm really happy to hear that, because I also know women our age don't understand that. It's really hard to accept.
Le Bergin:
It really is. The other thing too is they don't understand how much cardio is involved in lifting the heavy things. You've got to have some baseline of cardiovascular strength so that you can't huff and puff. I mean, anaerobic lifts, you're gasping. So there's a fine balance. When you're doing cardio for fat loss, you just got to tighten up your nutrition a little bit. You know what I mean? That's just a punishment that doesn't need to be happening. You got time to do some stuff. Unless you're doing a leisurely walk, that's different than just-
Kylie:
Yeah, exactly. That's my cardio now, leisurely walking. It's taken 20 years. I've just been trying to give somebody a shortcut and say, you don't have to go about it that way. I want to go back to one thing you said about the alcohol fueling your runs. When I was a runner, it was all fueled by guilt or alcohol or Taco Bell or something like that. I can tell you that for a fact.
Le Bergin:
Totally. I don't know if that's just what it's like in our 20s or if that was just my lifestyle. All of the super partying I did, I did pretty much before I went to college, which is unfortunate. When I got to college, I didn't have to explore so many of the other recreational drugs that were out there. I was like, oh, I know what that does. I know what that does. That was good. Plus I'd just found my brain. I was like, oh no-
Kylie:
No, I'm not messing this up.
Le Bergin:
I also say that I don't have a very addictive personality. Whatever it is that I'm doing, if I run out, then I run out. I just kind of have this addiction ADD. Next.
Kylie:
Yeah. Well, if you can stop running cold turkey, I'd say so.
Le Bergin:
Yeah. And again, a lot of times, it does become an addiction to people. It was just an escape for me. It was literally an escape. It was a habit. It was a total habit. I like getting sweaty. At the end of the day, running and burning calories is not building a body. Building a body is not easy. For you and I to have years and years to get where we are. If a 40 year old woman comes to me and she's like, "How do I get that?" I'm like, "Sign up for 15 years. Let's go." Let's sign up now for that. It's not going to happen in one year. You got to wipe that out of your mind. But knowing that you can do something majestic in one year and get a foundation that, again, like I said earlier, you can just layer. That's huge.
Le Bergin:
Some of my favorite clients are the ones who are 60 plus, who have been aeroboholics their entire life. Then they come with me and they're like, "Okay, my bone density is greater. My numbers are going down." They are just legit strong. It's so powerful to watch them create this structural integrity, because they didn't think that they could. Like, "Why can't you go to the lat pull down machine." "I don't know how to use it." "Well, sit down on it and reach up. Let me hand it to you." Learning how to do that is cool.
Kylie:
It's so cool. Before I hit record, Le had mentioned bone density because we were talking about weights and things, like physical body weight and how when you start strength training, you'll lose fat, yes. Your weight is probably going to go up, especially the longer you train. Part of that is due, not only to the muscle mass, but the bone density. I hadn't even considered that. But that's a great thing as we're getting older.
Le Bergin:
Yes. You think about a baby. A baby is so limber and can move all the way around. Then as soon as you start to load that baby's body, the bones get thick. And so when people are like, "You got to lift weights for bone density." People are like, "What does that even mean?" Once you start to load those bones, they have to respond, hopefully. That's what that does. There's density everywhere, and that muscular density. I don't care to say how old I am. I'm 47, but I do. I weigh 166 pounds. I'm only 5' 7", and when I started to use MyFitnessPal, I remember I weighed 140. And I put in there that I wanted to weigh 120, because I guess eighth grade was a good look. I don't know. What is 120?
Kylie:
That's like the universal number, I think, for all women.
Le Bergin:
Yeah. I don't even know what that is. Now, I just live here at this weight. I was telling Kylie earlier that I didn't know I weighed this. I literally haven't been on the scale in two years. My clothes don't fit anymore, and I don't expect them to. I also don't have this cellulite. This is my body, and I'm going to a size 10, like rock, whatever. It is what it is. I'm strong. I can carry the mirror, I can do whatever. I can't live in that trying to get into a size. I'll wear higher heels or I'll put on more lipstick. I don't know. Decorate.
Kylie:
Yeah. I think I feel like more of the fitness women, we need to start talking about that and normalizing that we don't weigh 120 pounds.
Le Bergin:
Many people are talking about throwing away the scale. Again, I think this example that I had just recently, just shock and awe, about the weight. I mean, just shock and awe. I really thought I was like 155 pounds. When we tell them to throw away the scale, that's one thing that is super liberating. But we don't tell them what happens if they do get back on it in a couple years. There is kind of an atmosphere reentry that we need to make sure you don't get some kind of altitude poisoning or something like that. The scale is so valuable when you are measuring for somebody who does have 50 pounds to lose, it is valuable. When you're talking about changing what your body is made of, a peanut and a marshmallow weigh the same thing. They just take up a different amount of space. That's it?
Kylie:
Le, you are full of nuggets. Peanut and a marshmallow weigh the same. Which one do you want to be? That's good.
Le Bergin:
Even though I know this, I have to still remind myself every single day. People look at you and I and go, "Oh my gosh, they've got nothing to worry about. I'm writing a book in my head and it's called, what is it called? Yeah. See how it's in my head. Oh, it's called, She Makes Me Sick. Okay. Why does she make you sick, she didn't do anything to you? What are you revolted about? You know what I mean? I just want to remind people like, just accept where you are and move in a direction that you want to go, and let go of who you used to be, and be ready to introduce yourself to the new person. She's new, she's ready to shine. She wants to come out. She wants to be here, but she's going to be a little bit shy. So you're going to have to really help her and love on her like you love on everybody else. But we just can't love on ourselves. It's so hard.
Kylie:
I cannot give away too much, but I have to send you the new landing page for my program.
Le Bergin:
Okay.
Kylie:
It's eerie. It's eerie what just came out of your mouth.
Le Bergin:
Are we twinsies?
Kylie:
We're twinsies.
Le Bergin:
Okay.
Kylie:
I'm scared. I feel like you have cameras in my house.
Le Bergin:
Okay. Oh my gosh. I got goosebumps on from the back of my head. I'm excited.
Kylie:
Oh my gosh. The other thing Le said that was another nugget. She called this whole process a balloon. What kind of balloon? A water balloon with a hole in it?
Le Bergin:
Just a balloon. You go into the gym, you work out and you see the changes. After the year, you're like, great. Like I said, no one's going to say they're done. It literally is like blowing up a balloon with a hole in it. You're constantly chasing this deflation. I say this too. Somebody at one of my bootcamps said this. She was like, "You don't brush your teeth just the one time. Well, that was great. You got to keep going back in." It's a commitment. Look, people are like, "Oh my God, it's such a pain to track." Well, it's such a pain to whine. It's a pain to track. Just do it for a minute, get the data and then move forward and surround yourself with people who aren't going to be your haters. Everyone's going to be judging you with what you're doing, why are you're tracking? Look how much time you're wasting, look how much, blah, blah, blah.
Le Bergin:
Once you learn it and it becomes second nature, then they're going to want to do what you do, but they don't have the same discipline that you do. They want that. So people are going to be around haters, and they're going to be around people who try to bring them down, and they're going to fall back into those habits. They might not find that they're worth, like, oh my gosh, I've done all these great things for my body and myself. Many times, people don't know how to live in their new skin. They're trying to walk around in their new body they created, they're not comfortable in it. They don't realize what has just happened. And that'll send them back. We've got to just remember that we've got to keep looking forward, or we're just going to bump into whatever we're looking behind us.
Kylie:
That is so true. I think that's what's really powerful about FASTer Way and my program too, is you may not have those supportive people in your life, but when you join a community, like either one, then you do. You have those instant friends. And that's where you can talk about your funny tracking stories. "Oh my God, you guys, I can't believe I forgot to track my whatever." Whereas, your friends may not get it.
Le Bergin:
Yeah I get it.
Kylie:
Oh, my God. I had it on ounce instead of grams. Can you believe that? Your friends may not get it, but the people in the group will. And that's where you can share your victories and post your selfies. That's one of my things when I get women to relax.
Le Bergin:
For you to have this podcast. I saw you, what, a few months ago, and you told me about it. I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to tune in." My list of podcasts was like four pages long. Whatever it was, a couple of weeks ago, and now I'm just addicted. If I wake up listening to the people that you talk to, you've got an amazing community, and just listening to the conversations. Your conversations that you have in this podcast are educational, inspiring. We get to hang around you a little bit more, and that's such a rare thing to do. Your energy is so great. That is contagious. Just spreading this word and this value is just so important. I'm just super, super proud of you and grateful.
Kylie:
Thank you.
Le Bergin:
Yeah. You're awesome.
Kylie:
I mean, that means a lot because you are the real deal. I'm not saying there aren't women out there that do it. There are. I know a lot of them. But I don't know, you have a way of delivering the message that's very easy to digest.
Le Bergin:
That's good. That's good.
Kylie:
You do it also when you teach your classes in FASTer Way. They're lucky to have you. They're very lucky to have you.
Le Bergin:
I'm glad to be there. You're awesome.
Kylie:
So what else did I want to say? I think that's really the big things I wanted to talk about. I said, Le and I are adults. You should trust an adult with your journey. I'm not saying you can't get value from a 22 year old trainer. I'm not saying that at all.
Le Bergin:
What you were saying, and what is so valuable, is that we have experience. You want to talk to the person who's been there, done that, seen a lot of things. You want to be, of course, with people who are innovative. For us to be adults who are not only innovative, but do have experience to bring to the table, we're speaking to the people who think that they can never get started. We know what's around that corner.
Le Bergin:
I used to tell my high school kids. I was like, "Oh my gosh, you guys, we're going to talk about everything in the history of the world." They're like, "Ah, boring." I said, "If I'm telling you something that you don't know, it's still not enjoyable to you. However, if there was a party that was this weekend, and if I knew what that route was like, and that there was a car wreck on this street and that there was a broken dam on this street, and that you'd have to go around. If I gave you the best, fastest directions to that party." They're like, "We're reading that map." I'm like, "Exactly." So we're at the party and we're going to give you the shortcut, just like Kylie said. We'll talk to you about the history of the world.
Kylie:
She's a brilliant teacher. You were born to teach people, that's for sure. Geez. Cool, Le. Well, thank you. This is the first of many. Because as you can tell, Le's had a very colorful background. I'd like to get into the backstory of things, but I don't want to take too much of her time. Le, thank you so much.
Le Bergin:
You're amazing. Thank you so much for this opportunity. And for all of you guys, keep listening to her. She's got great nuggets too.