Are you feeling tired and stressed with all that’s going on in the world around you? Well, you’re in luck. Joining me today on my Six Weeks to Fitness podcast is Brooke Rozzie, a certified health and wellness coach, nutritionist and personal trainer with over 12 years of experience in the wellness industry. She is also the creator of the Balanced Body program, a program dedicated to supporting women in not only achieving their goals, but to truly transform their relationship with their body. So they could not only have the energy they need to keep up with their busy mom life, but to also feel good in their skin while doing it. Today, Brooke will provide some expert fitness and nutrition tips for you busy moms out there and, show you how to balance your body and your life.
Vince Ferguson:
Brooke, before we discuss your Balanced Body program, tell my listeners more about Brooke Rozzie. Where did you grow up and what was Brooke’s childhood like?
Brooke Rozzie:
Oh gosh. How much time do we have? So I grew up in Michigan. I grew up in a pretty great home. My parents were awesome. We all have our family stuff, right? I grew up with a brother with addictions. I was overweight as a kid, and I think that presented challenges in itself growing up. And I really learned fitness from a younger age. Around sixth grade I lost most of the weight by myself and I didn’t know how to do it healthily. And I grew up watching my mom diet a lot of my life, talking poorly about her body. I’m what I call like the SnackWell generation, where everything was fat free.
Brooke Rozzie:
And that’s the environment I grew up in. And so I developed some eating disorder tendencies in high school due to a lot of those things. Poor body image, the way I talk to myself and I really started to realize what I was doing as I entered my young twenties. But in your young twenties, like most females, a lot of my approach to nutrition was still like, “Is this making me fat or skinny? How is this making me look in a bathing suit?” It was never, “How is this making me feel when I choose this,” and prioritizing my health until I lost my dad about seven years ago and through the trauma of losing him and the stress, I really started to see the wellness side of the industry and see how much other environmental factors in our life were influencing how we feel in our body.
Brooke Rozzie:
My body went a little haywire from it. My hormones went out of control. I developed Hypothyroid, and I was really forced into understanding how much my endocrine system and a lot of those things were playing a role in how I was feeling day to day. So, from personal experience, that truly transformed how I coach people and why I coach people the way I do, because I started to see how much other women were feeling similar ways that I had been feeling in my body. And after becoming a mom, I struggled with postpartum anxiety and I didn’t feel like I really had any resources or understanding as to why it was happening. I’ve always been in the nature to ask why? Why is this happening? Not just accept “Oh, you just have it.” But my question was always like, “Well, why do I have this?”
Brooke Rozzie:
It just came out of nowhere. So I really started to ask why and explore a lot of those things and when I started to see that there were so many different moms feeling the same way in their body and not understanding or getting the support, it really led me to truly developing the Balanced Body program that I coach and how I coach to it now because I really, obviously, I want women to feel good in their skin and achieve their goals and feel their best, but I really want you to just feel good when you’re there. I tell a lot of my clients I don’t care if you lose 20 pounds, if you don’t feel good, I want you to feel good when you’re there too.
Vince Ferguson:
And you mentioned, explain what that is to my listeners and how you dealt with that.
Brooke Rozzie:
So, Hypothyroid is essentially like, think of your master metabolism controller. Well, essentially if your thyroid is not functioning ideally, then we can pretty much assume that a lot of other parts of your endocrine system, meaning your sex hormone function and your stress responses and your gut health are not functioning the way that they should be either. So it really impacted a lot of areas in my life, my energy during the day, my anxiety, how I was able to sleep at night, foods that I was craving, my digestion. It impacted so many areas. I did go on a medication. I still take one now. I partnered with physicians to truly understanding the nutrition that I needed to be consuming to feel my best.
Brooke Rozzie:
And it really did gear me towards taking more of an individual approach with everything I do because the basic things that I was doing just wasn’t working for me and I really had to learn that nutrition and workout were more than just the food that I was eating. It was how I was balancing the stress in my body and how I was moving my body to support the stressors and things that I was experiencing.
Vince Ferguson:
So do you feel that nutrition plays a major part in how you feel?
Brooke Rozzie:
A hundred percent. I try to explain it to people it’s, the number one way available for your body to get nutrients is through your food. Our body is designed to receive nutrients through our food. Supplementation and things like that are amazing that we have options like that but we shouldn’t have to rely on things like that. So you’re your food truly, I always say, your food literally dictates your mood.
Brooke Rozzie:
If we’re lacking nutrients, for example, like magnesium, we have 200 enzymatic processes in our body that need efficient magnesium to function. And when we’re low, we have 200 enzymatic processes in our body that aren’t functioning ideally because of it. So think of one little thing that all of those different nutrients we get through our food contribute to how our body functions day to day.
Vince Ferguson:
Very good. Good point. So when you speak to your clients, you go over, you go over what they’re eating every day. I mean, do you provide a meal plan for them?
Brooke Rozzie:
I think of it less as meal plan and more of like foundational habits to build on. I truly start with, I think a few different things. We have our foundations and then we have our details and the details would be meal plans, macros, things like that, which can absolutely be beneficial but I always tell my clients, especially the moms, life is going to happen. And when life happen and your meal plan is not available to follow, what are you going to do?
Brooke Rozzie:
You need to have the foundations instilled so that you always have that place to go back to so that it’s not like, I’m on the bathroom off. I’m being detailed or I’m in maintenance. And I think of it that way versus I want you to know what to do. But I always tell my clients, my role when you’re done with me is to not need me. I ultimately want to work myself out of a job because I want you to know what you need to do because I cannot be with you for the rest of your life. You need to know why you’re choosing the foods you’re choosing and those things, and a meal plan is not teaching you that.
Vince Ferguson:
That’s very, very true. So do you have free consultations with your clients before you take them on?
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah, absolutely. Everybody I meet with, we start with a decision support call. We walk through, essentially I look at it as where are you at right now, where do you want to be and what are the holes in between that we need to focus on to get you there. And that’s really what our decision support call is for. And from there it’s, “Okay, here are the options and the things that I see from my experience and education that we need to prioritize with you and then these are the avenues we should go to do it.”
Vince Ferguson:
So what does it mean to have a Balanced Body?
Brooke Rozzie:
It really means being in alignment with yourself. Balance is the marketing term. Balance is kind of BS. We’re not really going to achieve balance, this ever, ever ending thing that we’re always looking for, but we can find alignment. And especially as a mom or a woman, it’s the alignment in how you’re feeling mentally, the alignment in your mindset and how you’re approaching things, your relationships, your relationships with other people and yourself. It’s the alignment in what your workouts look like during the week when life happens or when you have an easy week, what does that look like and how do you do it? And it’s the alignment with your nutrition choices for your individual body and what you need. And that’s truly what gives you that balanced feeling.
Brooke Rozzie:
We have this expectation, that balanced means that we’re never going to have struggles, we’re never going to take a setback, we’re never going to have life step in where we have to pivot. And that’s just not the reality, but the alignment means that we’re aligned in ourselves and we know how to pivot with it so that we can still feel the way that we need to feel.
Vince Ferguson:
So there’s no cookie cutter approach here. Everyone is treated as an individual.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. Even in my group coaching program, I’m giving you the foundations and the general guidelines, but I’m truly guiding you through how to take that and individually implement it too.
Vince Ferguson:
And again, you said that you don’t want someone to be dependent upon you, you want to basically have them be free of you after a while once they able to go out on their own and do what they need to do. And once you give them the information that they need, do you want them to be able to be independent of you?
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. I tell my clients, I’m like, “I love you. It’s not that I want to not work with you but I haven’t done my job if you need me forever, you haven’t learned anything.”
Vince Ferguson:
What are some of the causes, Brooke, for an unbalanced Body? What can contribute to that?
Brooke Rozzie:
Well it depends on where we’re feeling out of alignment, but it could be, a lot of times, especially a mom, when we’ve had a kid, we try to put this expectation on ourselves that we need to be able to keep up with and do what we used to do before we had kids. And we don’t take a step back to see, we all have this capacity in our day. And one, as a mom, like the whole “It takes a village,” type of a thing, the village has disappeared in modern motherhood. It’s just not there anymore. So we need to remember that we only have a certain capacity and we try to give so much of ourselves to other people. And self-sacrifice is like badge of good motherhood, and it’s not. It’s not true.
Brooke Rozzie:
But alignment really, truly mean that we recognize our capacity and we know what that is and we prioritize ourselves in that capacity. And let’s say before kids you have a cup of water, you have more capacity in that cup of water to add more on your plate, because you don’t have a human relying on you for something. But now that you’re a mom, it doesn’t mean you still can’t be effective and good with the things that doing or prioritize yourself. It means that we need to set healthy boundaries on what our capacity is and what we’re able to take on because a lot of that capacity has been taken up by the amazing thing that we have in our life, but it is taken up. So we need to, a lot of times, set those healthy boundaries that are taking away from us, being able to show up feeling our best so that when we feel our best, we can show up our best for our kids, for our spouse, for ourselves, because that’s really what it feels.
Vince Ferguson:
Do you believe that moms put too much stress on themselves trying to be perfect, trying to be all things, all people?
Brooke Rozzie:
All the time. We have this guilt, this mom guilt of, if “I don’t do this and I’m failing,” or, “That person needs me, I should be able to give more of myself to them.” Like, “Oh, my kids needed this, it’s just easier. If I do it.” We’re putting way too much on ourselves. One of the best things that I learned was don’t do for your kid what they’re capable of doing for themselves. And we try to instill that with our kids. And a lot of it is not because I’m not going to be here for you to do things but I want you to learn to be self-sufficient. And as a mom, we try to take that over a lot, not just with our kids, but with a lot of people. We want to be needed, we want to help people. It feels good to help people. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but we can’t help people when we’re not able to help ourselves first.
Brooke Rozzie:
And we overextend because we feel this guilt, but truly, I always ask my moms “Who’s story is that? Why are you feeling that guilt?” You need to check back in with yourself of like, “Hey, where is this guilt coming from? If I don’t help this person, why am I feeling guilty around that,” type of thing. And sometimes it can be other people’s expectations of us and our feeling the need to need it. It can be our expectations on ourselves and it can be, like what I said, what we used to be able to do and thinking we should be able to do that and not recognizing, you know what, what my life has shifted. And people sometimes can expect that we’re going to be the same person as we were before we had kids and it’s okay to acknowledge that you might be the same person, but your priorities have changed. And that’s okay.
Vince Ferguson:
What kind of stress does it put on a relationship though, between a husband and a wife, when she realizes that she can’t do everything that she used to do, or she has to change her way of doing things?
Brooke Rozzie:
That’s so true. It’s the boundaries and it can bring resentfulness. It’s very common. It can feel like you’re the one doing everything. I’ve gone through this in my own relationship with my husband. Sometimes you feel like you need to be the rescuer, you need to be the one to fix it instead of having the, “What? This was your responsibility, you need to handle this.” I think after our first, my husband and I really struggled with that one, and it was more so we really needed to set boundaries and priorities of who was handling what.
Brooke Rozzie:
A lot of times, women, we try to handle everything. We think that certain things in the home should be our responsibility but my husband and I really approach it as, we’re a partnership. We both are working inside and outside the home. We’re a partnership and how we handle this. We’re equally parents in this. One of us has our strengths over the others with certain things and we try to capitalize on that where I am very type A organized. So I handle the bills and the appointments and those kinds of things. I say I handle the mental load of our home, my husband handles the physical load of our home and he handles the laundry and the dishes and those kinds of things.
Brooke Rozzie:
But it really took a learning process to work through that. And it took me setting the boundaries of, “Okay, you know what? The laundry is not done. It’s overflowing.” Instead of getting resentful and take it on myself. I had to start saying to my husband, “Hey, the laundry is not done, we’re not doing this until that’s done,” type of a thing. And you’re not parenting But you’re partnering in it.
Vince Ferguson:
Good point. But I wonder how hard is it, when you’re speaking to your clients, knowing that they have a partner here, how hard is it to get through to them that now it really is a partnership because I think women have a tendency of taking it all on themselves and the partner is more than willing to let them do that.
Brooke Rozzie:
Well, of course, right. If somebody is going to take on your stuff, we would all be like, sure, take it away. I would not-
Vince Ferguson:
Exactly, take it.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. Who wouldn’t take advantage of that. But it’s really the communication and it comes down to a lot of times we expect, especially as a woman, we think of things totally different than a man. And we have to be okay with that. A lot of times we think like, “Well, he should think of this the way that I do or he should do this.” our brains are just not wired that way at all and we need to like recognize that sometimes guys literally communicate differently in many different ways and we need to acknowledge that our communication to them shouldn’t be the expectation that they know what we need but it’s the sitting down and having the conversation of, “Hey, I need you to understand when you’re not keeping up with this, it’s impacting me in this way,” and not coming from a place of anger or feeling triggered or anything like that, it’s coming from a place of like, “I know you’re not intentionally doing this, but this is how it’s impacting me.”
Brooke Rozzie:
And I think when we understand how our actions are affecting somebody else, we can come from a place of support more than when, it’s very common nature and I’m not always my best self either but we all can sometimes show up as like attacking or upset versus the, take the step back and have that true communication. So I always say, whether it’s your goal or food in the house or roles around the home or those kinds of things, it’s so much better when you can come from, I call it your green, yellow, and red zone, that’s one of my coach calls it. When you can come from that green zone to say, “Hey, I need you to understand that eating this way is really important to me because it makes me feel good. And when I feel good, I show up better as a spouse to you as a person to myself, as a mom to our kid,” and having those real conversations where we have to be a little vulnerable, because then they can understand where you’re truly coming from.
Vince Ferguson:
Wow. That’s a very intense topic too. I mean, I think we go even further into this.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah, and we want it to be easy, right? We want those transitions to just be easy. And sometimes when we fight it, we create this resistance around it and that’s where we get stuck and we stop. But we have to understand that we’re changing habit, we’re changing narrative, we’re changing pathways of how we do stuff. It’s not going to be easy for that stuff to happen, but it’s going to be so worth it if you can work through those things because ultimately you can either feel uncomfortable where you are or you can feel uncomfortable going through those transitions to get to where you’re truly wanting to be.
Vince Ferguson:
Good. Excellent. But now I have an even tougher question for you, but I’m sure you have the answer because you’ve worked with clients. What if you dealing with a client who does not have a partner, just a single mom who has to do so much and whose mother and father to her kids. What do you tell them?
Brooke Rozzie:
Oh my gosh, I have so much for single moms because you have so much on your plate. And gosh, the days that my husband’s gone, I’m like, “Oh, thank God you’re back here.” But it’s really prioritizing. I do have girlfriends that are single moms and they balance a lot and they have partners that are not in the picture at all. And we sit down and it’s just, “Okay, what are your non-negotiables?” And be flexible within what that non-negotiable is. So your non-negotiable could be movement, but be flexible about what that movement is. Maybe you can’t get a 45 minute strength training workout in that day, but could you put the kids in a stroller and go on a walk? You couldn’t do that. But maybe be flexible on what that is, but non-negotiable on the fact that you’re getting movement in.
Brooke Rozzie:
It could be a non-negotiable that we eat healthy food in our home, but you know what, I don’t have any food prepared so I’m going to be flexible on where the source of that food is coming from. Maybe we’re ordering it out or I’m picking a couple of things up from the store instead, instead of grabbing fast food or something, I’m, non-negotiable that I’m eating healthy food, but I’m flexible in the approach that we’re taking to do that.
Vince Ferguson:
Now with your clients, I know you talk about nutrition, but you also talk about exercise, correct?
Brooke Rozzie:
I do. All my programs include tailored workout, for you at home or gym, whatever is best. I work with people across the country, so it’s more virtual action. So it’s all done through an app and it’s all tailored to what you individually need and you have access to me through it, coach you through, make pivot all those kinds of things through it.
Vince Ferguson:
Okay. So your business is pretty much via what, Zoom?
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. I’ll make coaching appointment with private clients via Zoom. And my group coaching programs, we do Zoom coaching calls. I have a community group with everyone where, in an app, we’re all interacting with each other. I made the pivot, one, because of the pandemic, but two, it really gives mom the flexibility that they need to not have another appointment on your plate that you have to get to. It really gives you more flexibility to make it work.
Vince Ferguson:
Oh, definitely. But also you have a wider audience.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah.
Vince Ferguson:
Because I mean, not only in this country, you can meet up with people in other, not only time zones, but other countries as well, like Ireland and Sweden or Poland, whatever, which is amazing. The sky’s the limit.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. Some of my clients are in Canada. Some are here. That’s where I’m at right now, but it’s cool for me to, to like learn how other countries do things too, and have to be flexible with that. It’s pretty awesome.
Vince Ferguson:
Definitely. Now, what type of packages does your Balanced Body program offer? Like, six weeks, 10 weeks?
Brooke Rozzie:
It’s 24 weeks. It used to be 12 weeks for the Balanced Body program, but I really found that 12 weeks was not enough time for you to leave me truly feeling good and ultimately, I said that’s my goal. So 24 weeks is really enough time where we really can prioritize and make sure that these things are instilled as a habit for you. You’ve gone through life with it, you’ve gone through a couple of seasons with it so we can make sure that you’ve had the true support that you need to leave it not needing another program again. Know what you need to do.
Brooke Rozzie:
I do offer a graduate program to my clients when they’re done, where like they can keep me at an arms with distance and still have programming done for them if they choose but they don’t need to. It’s really up to them at that point. The program is 24 weeks. We emphasize hormonal health and how it’s impacting how you’re feeling, nutrition, you have tailored workouts done for you. I have guest expert coaches that come in from like hormonal health to mindset coaches to maternal mental health that speak through the program as well. And then everybody gets access to me via Voxer or like voice texting throughout the program too, as well as bi-weekly coaching calls with me.
Vince Ferguson:
And you’ve been doing this now, this program now for how long?
Brooke Rozzie:
A year.
Vince Ferguson:
A year? And it’s been doing quite well.
Brooke Rozzie:
It’s been doing awesome. I used to only do private coaching and I still do private coaching for select clients, but it’s truly my favorite thing to deliver because it’s all encompassing. It’s the program I really wish was there after I had our first, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know about being a mom and it’s the program made for moms because there wasn’t a lot of things out there for that.
Vince Ferguson:
Isn’t that something, if you only had this program that you put together for you, yourself, when you had your first kid, it would make all the difference, but obviously there’s a need for it, there’s a market for it and you, and you’re filling it and that’s a great thing. How many kids do you have?
Brooke Rozzie:
I have two. We have a three-and-a-half-year old and a one-year-old.
Vince Ferguson:
Wow. So you’re busy.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. It’s a little chaotic in our house.
Vince Ferguson:
Yes, exactly. Now your sessions though, your packages, is it once a week that the client sees you?
Brooke Rozzie:
It depends. If they’re in the Balanced Body program, the group coaching program, then they get bi-weekly calls with me and then if they’re doing private coaching with me, private coaching is if somebody wants a little bit more accountability, support, a little more hand holding, or they just don’t like a group setting, I do have a private coaching option and the private coaching clients do meet with me weekly.
Vince Ferguson:
Okay, great. Now my podcast is Six Weeks To Fitness. So let’s say, what would you recommend a busy mom to do if, if she wanted to see results, at least getting to where she wants to be. Let’s say if it’s a weight loss, she just wants to feel overall better about her body, about her life, what nutrition advice would you give this busy mom for six weeks to see and feel some improvement.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So in six weeks I generally say, “Don’t put pressure on yourself but think of the simple things that you can shift that will make a massive difference.” The foundation’s always not at the most because those are truly what keep us sustained and where we need to be. So I always say like, let’s look at the areas that you’re like missing the boat right now. And let’s prioritize that and each week focus on one to two new things. So one week it could be aiming for half of your body weight in water each day and then the next week it could be prioritizing protein with each of your meals and then the next week it could be moving your body for 30 minutes a day and then we’re just building. And then at six weeks you have six different habits that you’ve implemented and you’re in a totally different place in six weeks just from implementing one new thing each week through that time.
Vince Ferguson:
But when it comes to nutrition, are there any types of foods that you recommend that they start eating as opposed to other types of food?
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. I always say one, whole real foods, they’re going to keep you the most satiated and deliver you those nutrients that we talked about that you need. So start with assessing, looking at how much of your food is coming from whole food or packaged food and try to aim the first week for 80% of your food to come from whole food sources. And then look in the detail of what that food is. So on your plate, you should have a protein, an adequate protein source palm to maybe a hand size. If you’re eating three meals a day, you should have about a fish size serving of good fiber carbs on your plate. Some veggies I generally say should take up like half of our plate and then some fat. We need to have an adequate fat in there, especially as women to support our hormonal functions.
Brooke Rozzie:
So what you can do is week one, look at the whole food. Week two, prioritize that protein with each of your meals. Week three, make sure you have a fibrous carb with each meal. Week four, make sure you have the veggie and fat with each meal. Week five, start to tune in to what sources. Are we eating more organic sources? Where are we getting those from? And then in week six, start to look at, “Okay, how much water am I taking in?” Start to up your water intake a little bit more. They seem so simple, but they can make a massive difference in how you’re feeling.
Vince Ferguson:
Most definitely. Brooke, how can my listeners find out more about you about a Balanced Body? And do you have a website? Do you have the social media that they can follow?
Brooke Rozzie:
So Instagram is probably where you’re going to see me the most. So it’s @Brooke Rozzie, R-O-Z-Z-I-E. And my program is open right now. So the Balanced Body start September 13th. So they can come join. If they have questions, they can come ask me there. Just shoot me a DM and we’ll share.
Vince Ferguson:
That’s awesome. Now, Brooke, do you also have a podcast?
Brooke Rozzie:
I don’t. I had started one. I thought about it and I’m back to the drawing board on what I want it to be. So pretty soon, I might.
Vince Ferguson:
Yeah, I would imagine you will because you articulate your program so well and I think that it would be another benefit, another asset of yours to have that. You’ll reach even more people and that’s what you want to do. That’s what you’re doing.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. I love podcasts. I think they’re an amazing way to get information. I need to, well, one I’m looking at my capacities, just like I coach my clients of like what I have capacity for, but it will be there. It’s just a matter of when.
Vince Ferguson:
That’s impressive. You’re right. You don’t want to put more on you than you can handle right now, right?
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Vince Ferguson:
There you go. I’m sure you tell your clients that we become overwhelmed trying to do everything, be all things, all people and you don’t have the capacity for it.
Brooke Rozzie:
I practice what I teach.
Vince Ferguson:
What advice would you give to moms now who are busy, struggling, trying to make it happen and need some encouragement.
Brooke Rozzie:
One, give yourself grace. You have so much that you take in a mental load and a physical load day-to-day. So you have to give yourself grace on what you’re actually doing. We always feel like it’s not enough. If you sat down and made a list of the things that you were doing day to day, you would be shocked. And then I always say, talk to yourself the way you would talk to your daughter. And if your daughter says that she needs a break or she’s feeling exhausted or run down, what would you say? You would tell her to chill but somehow we tell ourselves, we have to push harder, we have to do more. Give yourself a break. It’s okay to take a step back and assess and you don’t have to be everything to everybody.
Vince Ferguson:
Awesome. Give yourself a break. You don’t have to be everything to everybody. Chill.
Brooke Rozzie:
Yeah.
Vince Ferguson:
Love it Brooke. Brooke Rozzie on behalf of Body Sculpt of New York, that’s my nonprofit organization and Six Weeks To Fitness, I truly want to thank you for coming on my show today.
Brooke Rozzie:
Thank you. I love being on here with you. So thank you for having me.
Vince Ferguson:
You a wonderful, and to my list of those, I truly hope this program was informative, encouraging, and inspiring, and that you will continue tuning in to our six weeks of fitness podcast. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the show, please leave them on my Six Weeks To Fitness blog at http://www.6weekstofitness.com or email me at vince@sixweeks.com. And don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes.
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