Manders Mindset

105: Breaking Free: Overcoming Overachievement & Embracing Your True Self with Leslie Urbas

• Amanda Russo • Episode 105

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In this episode, Amanda Russo dives deep into the power of self-worth, personal growth, and embracing who you are at your core. Joined by Leslie Urbas, a registered dietitian and personal trainer with over 15 years of experience, this episode unpacks the fascinating concept of "Digestion Codes" and how they can transform not just your relationship with food but your entire outlook on life.

From childhood lessons on self-worth to overcoming an eating disorder, Leslie's story will resonate with anyone seeking clarity, balance, and a deeper connection to their true self. Plus, discover how Rachel Hollis’s Girl, Wash Your Face played a pivotal role in shaping Leslie’s entrepreneurial journey and the evolution of her mindset.

In This Episode, You’ll Uncover:

  • The surprising societal expectations that shaped Leslie’s early perception of self-worth.
  • How childhood experiences and societal pressures can lead to unhealthy patterns, including eating disorders.
  • Why Leslie views herself as a "recovering selfless overachiever" and what that means.
  • The pivotal role Rachel Hollis’s Girl, Wash Your Face played in Leslie’s transformation.
  • An introduction to "Digestion Codes" and how they help you reconnect with your body.
  • Practical tips for evaluating your self-worth and breaking free from the need to “check society’s boxes.”
  • The importance of teaching children to trust their bodies and develop true empowerment.


You can watch the episode HERE on YouTube @mandersmindset

To Connect with Amanda:

To Connect with Leslie:

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Manders Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset will shift your life. Welcome to Amanda's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I am here today with Leslie Obus, and she is a registered dietitian and personal trainer with over 15 years experience, and she loves to help women like herself by overcoming selfless, overachieving tendencies and finally fully embracing themselves using what she calls digestion codes, and we're going to delve into what those are. Leslie and I first got connected because I was seeking guests who have followed along with Rachel Hollis and whose growth journey has also been shaped by Rachel. Delve into Leslie's story and how Rachel has impacted her, and I am here with Leslie today. Thanks so much for joining me.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. I love the topic.

Speaker 2:

Of course. So who would you say? Leslie is at the core.

Speaker 3:

That's a great question. Funny enough, it's really been what I've been exploring these past few days, because I process I was taught as a child my self-worth. The way that I viewed the world and took in the world told me that my self-worth was based on how much money you made In corporation with a good job. Did your job require a lot of hard work? Were you doing a good job? Were you recognized as a good worker? Those two kind of overhand lap, they overlap very much. And then how you looked physically, your body was, is an important thing. And last but not least, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting the other one. So it must be a good sign that I'm moving away from it.

Speaker 3:

But oh, if you were married, like if you had a boyfriend, if you were married, like your martial status, that kind of thing and I was like I know I've filled in the box because, as I love to say, I'm a recovering selfless overachiever of legitimately checking all the boxes that I thought mattered. And then sitting here one day and being like huh it, this is it, this is really it. The boxes are checked and the things are done, and now what's next? Right, it's led me to really think of who am I at the core? I'm reframing my own self-worth as it is now because, as you know, every so often you step into new awareness and you step into a new mindset and you revamp your life. And so, truthfully, who I am at the core is a woman who just wants to be herself. I want to enjoy the things that I want to enjoy, not just ad lib, like so many people say.

Speaker 3:

Well, I don't really care what others say, but you can almost tell how fast they say it and the way that they say it, if they actually care or they don't care If they're just ad-libbing it. You know, it's sort of like the positive vibes only thing, and I get that. But are you processing that sweeping it under the rug isn't actually changing your positive vibe, right? And so, truthfully, at my core, I am a lifelong learner. I am consciousness. I'm a part of God or universe or spirit, whoever you want to call it, who was put here to really help women feel comfortable in their bodies and discover who they are after accepting the physical form of who they are. I'm a mom, which I will really say is truthfully me at my core. I love having children, even though that was a box I checked in the beginning. I truthfully love having my children and I'm figuring it out every single day of who I am more and stepping more and more into who I was designed to be instead of who I have forced myself to become.

Speaker 2:

Okay, that's awesome. Can you take us down memory lane a little bit and tell us about your upbringing, family?

Speaker 3:

dynamic, yeah, sure. So I mean I grew up in the middle of America St Louis, missouri. I had two older sisters and my parents both worked. My dad was like a baseball coach and a real estate person. My dad has definitely always lived a free spirited life. Like myself, I'm going to have a job that's got that little bit of gray area of play. He taught, he coached baseball, so he played his dream, he taught his dream and, yeah, that meant some weekends is working, but it also meant on a random Tuesday he was taking the day off to the golf. He didn't have to go to work because he worked all weekend right and real estate in and of itself, you kind of create that. And even now in his 60s, he kind of creates his own life and does other little odds and end jobs that he loves. And he's about to be a referee for basketball for 50 years. So yeah, I know it's like a big accomplishment to him. I'm like this is fabulous. I love this dad. I seriously do Right. So he's always designed his own life. He's always had multiple jobs, but always something it was definitely a passion of his. I don't think my dad ever did something that he absolutely dreaded. You know, it wasn't like I have to do this to make the money. This is hard work.

Speaker 3:

My mom definitely was a little bit different. She worked for TWA, which was an airline back in the I really want to say before the 2000s. I think they sold out before 2000 hit. I could be wrong, though it could have been around that time. Then she worked for American for a little bit and then she began working at a school. So my mom has always been like a typical nine to five worker, which is fine, but she, you know, always taught us the ethic of hard work and being a good worker and having reasons.

Speaker 3:

I was the youngest. So my sister, who was five years older, and my sister my other sister was three years older. It was always them against me, you know. So I learned from a young age. It was really just kind of me Close friends. I had the little boy next door and we hung out from time to time, but it was always on his dime when he wanted to and I had to play what he wanted to play. If I didn't play what he wanted to play, I pretty much needed to leave because he would complain to his mom and his mom was like play what he wants to play or go home, and I learned that I had to do what everybody else wanted to do in order for me to play Same with my sisters right, so quickly.

Speaker 3:

I think as a child I pretty much adapted to doing what everybody else wanted me to do to be accepted, because nobody was ever joining me right. And even in school, my high school reunion was literally this past Saturday. I didn't go because I'm in Spain and it's in St Louis, but I literally thought about it from this perspective of even then I was filling in boxes to try to fit into groups and I never really fit into any group. I have two friends from high school that I pretty much still talk to occasionally. You know I don't have that and it's not something that's there in any given period of my life, it's all. And I truly believe it's because I was always just trying to be like the group to fit in. I didn't actually know how to express myself to fit in anywhere, right. So that's like the true background.

Speaker 3:

But the big things that really shaped, I think, who I was is that when I was seven or eight years old I couldn't tell you because it was second grade year of school. I was raised Catholic and I remember the day we had to come back for confession and my second grade teacher said to all of us, as we were standing in line getting ready to leave you are a sinner, you have been sinning for eight years, seven, eight years. You are going to confession tonight. You do not have nothing to say, think about what to say and repent. You have a reason to repent and I remember going. I remember sitting there with a lump in my body for probably three hours in between, leaving school to come back to do this confession and still love the priest. He was such a sweet little guy, but he gave me my penance and I went back to the pew and I did it and I sat back down and I went. I feel no different.

Speaker 3:

So I believed at that moment that I was a sinner and my view of God, of the world, of universe, of spirit, was a God that was keeping a clipboard full of all the things I did wrong. Right, there was no loving person in my mind. I was doing everything I possibly could not to go to hell, really, and that if I was late for church or if I didn't do this, or if I didn't do that, I was like he's tallying this up, how many tallies do I get right? I don't really know how many tallies I'm going to get in this life. Then tack on there. That pretty much sums up me in a nutshell.

Speaker 3:

If I think about my younger years, it was always conforming to fit into the group and praying to God. Nobody figured out that I was still this sinner because I felt no different. No matter how many times they made us go to confession, nothing ever changed in me because I probably didn't really know the truth. And then I think the other big thing that forced me down the road was when I was a freshman in high school. My high school softball coach, within the first week of showing up to high school, told me that I was too fat to play varsity softball, even though I was a very normal, healthy BMI. And another girl told me that I was too fat to hang out with. So then became my obsession with weight and truthfully, if I really were to think about it on all the ways of self-worth, me becoming like working for money at a job, was really me still conforming to these people? Right? I had to conform to live like these people. And then, with the weight thing, that was a part of it, that had to become part of my self-worth, because people were choosing not to accept me to play on a team, not to accept to hang out with me based on my body size.

Speaker 3:

And then really maybe the last one was when I first got into college and at Thanksgiving, the day before I started my eating disorder we were sitting at Thanksgiving because the majority of us now of my cousins were in college was who had a boyfriend, who had a good job along with good college, and who had recently lost weight and looked so good. And I was like, okay, mine was brought up in none of those. I did have a boyfriend, but it wasn't serious. I did great in school but I still kind of had the same job I had always had and I definitely had not lost any weight. From all the issues I gained in high school, I actually gained 25 pounds through pressuring myself to lose so much weight. I went the opposite direction. So the next day I was like that's it, I'm gonna go eating disorder and go crazy in order to control, because I don't know how to become somebody in somebody else's eyes.

Speaker 2:

Because I don't know how to become somebody in somebody else's eyes. What type?

Speaker 3:

of eating disorder did you develop? So I didn't. I mean, I was studying to be a dietician right Now. I had no nutrition classes yet, but that put it on the radar to have one. I have never understood how people could make them throw up. I know this isn't exactly the greatest topic on the podcast, but I could never do it Like even if I was so sick to my stomach from something I ate and high staying or something, I couldn't do it. I don't feel like I don't know I don't get it.

Speaker 3:

So I I actually I became anorexic. I uh I guess that's what you would term it I ate 250 calories a day. I know from what it was and I worked out for about two hours. I was caught pretty fast. So I gained about 25 pounds in high school and I lost all 25 pounds.

Speaker 3:

So I literally started the day after Thanksgiving, I won't forget and before New Year's my cousin had figured it out. My cousin and I were very close. We actually worked at Michael's together, which was the job I had at the time and so when she figured out what I was doing, she told my mom. And when my mom confronted me in, knowing I lost the weight, I was like I do not have this. So I immediately stopped because I was like the worthiness factor in my brain I couldn't go to this, because the thing I had gotten to, the thing I'm now talked about for being skinny, if I admit to this and I go to this thing now, this becomes a bad thing instead of a good thing. So I immediately stopped cold turkey, but, yeah, 250 calories. And then cause I didn't know how to maintain it healthfully I was like I can't just go back to eating the way that I did before. So I took on excessive exercise and I worked out about three to four hours a day for pretty much 10 years of my life.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's a long time.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean, I started when I was 18. I stopped excessively exercising right after I turned 30, between 30 and 31 when I met my husband.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's a long time.

Speaker 2:

I was crazy about it. Yeah, I relate to a lot of what you said, though I know I didn't track calories per se, but I developed an eating disorder myself and I didn't want to approach it in terms of the I'm not eating at all. So I was a vegetarian at the time. So it turned to I'm going to eat green beans and I'm going to eat honeydew melon, so I'm still eating. It's not an eating disorder and I like kind of tricked myself into thinking it wasn't one. So I relate to a lot of what you just said there, Although 10 years is a long time. I developed the excessive exercise myself because you think that's going to help drop the weight.

Speaker 3:

You know how'd you get out of that, though? That's a great question. I'd love to say I developed self-worth, but in knowing my journey, that wasn't it at all. I checked a different box In my whole stem of excessively exercising, of making sure that I got in two to four hours a day, of making sure that I got in two to four hours a day minimum. Okay, in that entire time that I did. All that it was socially acceptable. With a lot of the groups that I was in, many of the other girls were doing the same thing. We exercised so we could have the life that we wanted to, and that was acceptable. And then one of my friends was even so meticulous. It was like look how many low calories we can eat this whole jar for 25 calories when we would drink too much, you know in our twenties and stuff like that. And she lived by that man. She 100% did some of the things that she ate. I was like this is terrible, it tastes disgusting. But anyways, I really love to say it's because I developed self-worth. But I don't think it was. I think it's because, you know, in my, in my twenties, through the whole time it depended on how happy I was right. So if I was successfully happy and with the boyfriend and we were traveling and doing the thing, I was up 10 pounds when we were back home and we could be like meticulous to doing all the things and macro counting and stuff like that Cause now I'm a dietician so I know how to do that and I was a hundred percent on the macros and exercising, I was down to 10 pounds but it swing shifted a lot right. And so I actually got engaged to my long-term boyfriend when I was 27, 28, 29, something like that, I don't remember and I broke it off and it was a little bit, maybe like a year and a quarter later when I met my now husband, maybe like a year and a quarter later when I met my now husband, and it was almost like with the turn of choosing I chose.

Speaker 3:

After this, one day I was at a bar with friends it was December of 2015. And I just had a friend who was like, let's go out and let's do this, let's watch football, let's have a great Sunday. I was like, ok, let's do it. And at the end he went to kiss me and I was like I thought we were just hanging as friends and he was like no, this was a date. I was like it was like where was the? I'm on a date. I thought we were just hanging out as friends. We've hung out before, right, I don't get it. So I like that was the last time he never spoke another word befriended me on Facebook. It was like I was legitimately gone. But that night I was sitting in my I had just bought a house less than a month and a half ago and I went home and I was sitting in my bed and I was like I'm joining matchcom, I'm done with this.

Speaker 3:

And it was really around then that it was like I am tired of living this way. There has got to be a better way. I'm over 30 and I just want to have a better life, and I really think it was that. And then when I met my boyfriend and I just kind of knew that it was gonna wind up serious and we'd wind up getting married it's almost as easy as that I cut back on how many classes, like I was a spin instructor, so that's how I did most of this.

Speaker 3:

I taught most days. I taught two to three spin classes a day and then worked out one to two hours on my own. So that's how I maintained it and it didn't look bad because I was getting paid. It was my job. I was supposed to do this on the weekends too. I mean before I met my boyfriend, before I met my now husband in 2015, I taught 5.45 am spin class every day, and in the evening I taught 5.30 pm class. Sometimes I picked up 6.45 when nobody would.

Speaker 3:

And on the weekends I taught an aqua class and a spin class and a power pump class. So it was every Saturday and Sunday I was in the gym for two or three hours teaching repetitive classes and nobody viewed it as a negative thing because it was making me subsequent income. So I was checking all of the boxes of my self-worth as needed Good job, making good money, she looks good, she's got the boyfriends or whatever. I always had a guy.

Speaker 3:

And then I think, when I realized how serious it was like I no longer wanted to spend Monday through Friday working out like crazy, I even changed the way my job worked. At the Naval Hospital where I worked at, I got them to change my shift so I could work four 10-hour days and have Fridays off, so I'd have even more time with him and then, yeah, I really think that was the kicker, because it's like I got the other box of oh I'm going to get married, I am going to have kids, I am going to do that, and so I was able to relax on the excessive exercise. Still, it was two hours a day, which many people would call that, but to me it was two hours a day, which many people would call that, but to me that was rational. Two hours is rational because I was at four, you know.

Speaker 2:

Now, that was 2015,. You said and what does exercising look like for you today?

Speaker 3:

That's a great question because I'm in the process of changing that again. I for the longest time. I mean I started working out every single day when I was 15. So basically, when they both told me I was fat, I determined that I was not going to have this. So it wasn't even a month or two later when I looked at my mom and I was like we should wake up every morning at 5 am and walk. And we did, my mom and I did. I by 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,. When you're supposed to hate your parents like I was up at 5 am working out with my mom every single day. Right, and yeah, we thoroughly enjoyed that time together. That's when it started and then, when I wasn't getting enough progress is really when I went to okay, well then, I'll run in the evening. I will add running to my evening schedule and I've just recently gotten to a point of is the workout I'm doing actually what my body needs, or is it that I'm afraid of letting go of this huge commitment I made at 15? I'm about to be 39. And I don't typically miss.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I was dead sick with strep throat and didn't know it, and I taught my spin class that morning because I knew I couldn't call in. Nobody would show up because you couldn't get a replacement that fast. So I taught it. I went to work. My boss looked at me and was like you look terrible, you need to go to a doctor. I got an appointment. She was like she didn't even really have to do anything. She just looked at my back of my throat and she was like you have strep throat, but I have to test you anyways. And yeah, I won't forget that.

Speaker 3:

And so much of that, so much of that. I mean I've had two babies, two C-sections, and I took the bare minimum amount of time as I possibly could, because exercise is so much of my life, and even every single day with them, because you're allowed to walk. I would walk with both of my kids. As soon as I got home, I was walking at least a mile a day, or if not more, and so I've really reframed it.

Speaker 3:

Exercise to me now is nurturing my body and being present with it, because I realized for so long I'd lift a weight but I wouldn't even really process what I did because I was okay. I've got to make sure I get all of this in this period of time to keep this shape, to maintain this Meanwhile my body's probably that hurts, that movement's wrong. You're tired, right. When I'd personally train people, I would make them do these things, but you know your own worst tired right. When I personally train people, I would make them do these things, but you know your own worst patient right. So exercise to me now is really a nourishing of the soul. I do a little bit of nervous system work every day, a little bit of yoga, depending on the day, really feeling into it, and then determine what kind of workout I'm going to do, based on how my body feels after I do the stretching.

Speaker 2:

So what goes our different day to day for you?

Speaker 3:

Pretty much I mean even today like I completely changed it up. I was like my body is really telling me to change it up. I could tell when I was 19, right after the eating disorder, that my body really shifted because that was the first time I had ever gotten weight to actually move off my body when I was 18, 19. And so I processed that at 19. When I was 29 is when I started to process that my weight was always shifting based on the life status I was in. And now at 39, having two kids breastfed both of them for such a long time, and now my body is really almost back to mine. They say it's four years post breastfeeding, so I have technically two more years, but I know that my body changed Like I felt a shift recently of what it is asking for and I think it came from my dad.

Speaker 3:

I don't think I'll ever listen to this, but my dad is an avid worker out there. Like my dad ran a lot with me. He ran half marathons with me, all the things my mom has really only walked. She's done some lightweights and stuff like that, but she's walked a majority of my life and we took an awesome vacation in August, my parents, my kids, my husband and I to Scandinavia and there was one day we walked three miles and we were discussing if we were going to walk home or if we were going to get a taxi. And my dad was like we are taking a taxi because I don't want to walk again. And I just processed that like when I get to be in my 60s and 70s, I want to still be able to do it all. So if I'm ignoring my body and really pushing it now, what will happen then? And some of these big bodybuilders have had some of those effects too where they just literally can't do anything because they ignored the actual pain and the things they needed to pay attention to earlier on.

Speaker 2:

So where in all of this did you discover Rachel Hollis? Was it anything related to fitness?

Speaker 3:

Totally, of course it had to be right, because my brain I mean my brain has always been around that. The whole reason why I became a dietician and a personal trainer was because in college, in high school, when I couldn't figure out how to do it because you named the diet in 2000 to 2004, and I tried it, my mom and I did Weight Watchers. My mom and I did Keto or not Keto back then it was what you would call it Atkins right and we did this weird drink thing and all of the things that you can imagine. We did hydroxycut, all of those things that were crazy. Back then I did them all, you know, to achieve this result, and I mean now I wouldn't touch anything with a 10-foot pole, but in 2016, my cousin's wife became a beach body coach, and maybe even 2017 is when she was.

Speaker 2:

I don't remember.

Speaker 3:

And obviously I saw every post that she made, because back then, people that I was friends with weren't posting every single day, until now, when social media is so different after 2020. But I'd see her post and I'd be like it would bother me to an extent, because I'm a dietitian and sometimes I'm like why did I get a degree? I could have just been a health coach. But I'm over that now. I think it's wonderful and there's a place for all dietitians, health coaches, everybody, etc. Right. So I watched her journey and I wasn't called to be a Beachbody coach, at least at the time and she started a book club for Rachel Hollis called Girl Wash your Face right, her first book. She was like we're going to do a book club and we're going to read this book and I had just had my daughter. My daughter was born in July of 2018 and I had just had her and I just decided that I was going to read the book and I remember getting it on Kindle, which is how I read it and it was Labor Day, weekend and status post having a baby. Things were just all over the place. My husband was going to leave again for his job. I've got this baby. I feel completely different. My life is different. I'm subject to breastfeeding all the time. I just have a completely different life.

Speaker 3:

And I read her book cover to cover in probably 36 hours and that's really when it began. It was the first book, truthfully, I've probably ever read cover to cover, minus the Babysitter's club when I was younger, or I did all of those five people you were meeting heaven book and Tuesdays with Maury. I read all those, but I was not an avid reader. I totally made up every book report I ever had to do, so it's like it was not my thing. Give me a book I want to read. Maybe I would, but the books you want me to read and write about, I'm like hell, hell, no, this is so boring. So, yeah, it was that book, because she spoke so much from a mother perspective and I needed that.

Speaker 2:

So what did reading it shift in you? What was one of the first things you say it shifted in you?

Speaker 3:

I think that I was allowed to be the type of mother that I needed to be, because Rachel spoke about how she would love going to work but sometimes she would hate going home. And she spoke about how she would sit at the table, dressed up, really nice, to cut out the little things for her kids for school. But she didn't actually desire to do so. She really just wanted somebody else, and all the other moms looked at her differently because she wore different clothes and I was neither mom yet. But I just knew I wanted to choose the mom I wanted to be, to choose the mom I wanted to be. I didn't want to have to go down the road. When I was in grade school, my best friend's mom was the room mom for all of her kids, and Katie has a bajillion photos from grade school and she was always in the in club of all the people that hung out at the school. And we weren't. My dad and mom didn't do all the crazy things. They weren't the sporty moms doing everything. They both did the things they needed to do. They both did something for the church, they both did something for us and that was it. They didn't. They weren't doing everything versus the other families that were, and when they were doing everything, they were always all together right, because they're always coaching somebody or doing something. And that wasn't us. And I was jealous, I think growing up, because I was like if my parents would just do that, I would finally have friends. That was the thing even though that really wasn't the thing, and I'm not mad at my parents at all but I promised myself I would be that mom and I now see that I won't be that mom, even though I promised that to myself. That was just a little child thing and I needed that book to really see that. But on top of that is really when I decided that I was going to be a Beachbody coach but it did take me a month later before I decided to do it because I wanted to try the entrepreneur thing.

Speaker 3:

When I was in college I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew it as soon as I took my first nutrition class and they started talking about the different things we could do. Not one part of me said I want to work in a hospital or I want to work in a nursing home or anything like that. I just wanted to be an entrepreneur. But I didn't come from a family of entrepreneurs that started and back then it was completely like I mean, facebook was brand new, literally. I got a Facebook account like two months after it went as big as it did and you had to have a edu address and I only got it because my boyfriend at the time was like you have to do this. So I have literally been on Facebook more years of my life than I have been alive. So it's like 20, I think it's 22 years or something. Obviously like I have more years with Facebook than without.

Speaker 3:

Facebook is what I'm trying to get at and yeah, I remember that and I remember like when the news feed came out and all that kind of stuff, but this was different. It was almost like that. It was that I'm going to be the person in my family that does this yet again and probably is the black sheep again of I'm going to make money from the internet. You're going to do what are you going to do? Right, I'm going to make money helping people in this way, and it was frowned upon, but I had a box checked.

Speaker 3:

I was married with a husband who had a stable job versus when I was in my 20s I was told you need to get a job, you need to get insurance, you need to get off hours and you need to get a job, you need to get insurance, you need to get off bars and you need to get stable. And that in no way was an entrepreneur, so I didn't even know how to do it or even voice that I should, and so I think she really helps me to see that I could have a different voice and a different decision in life for myself.

Speaker 2:

How soon after the book did you go your entrepreneurial journey?

Speaker 3:

Pretty quick. So that would have been Labor Day weekend and I'm 90% positive. I became a Beachbody coach probably right after my birthday in 2018. So it would have been like a month and a half, maybe two months, but it was probably four days after I read the book that I texted my cousin's wife and was like I think I'm going to do this and then it just took some coercing of me being accepting of it and choosing to do it. And yeah, I knew Beachbody wasn't it for life, though when I started it. It just really helped me to open up and learn some of the beginning grounds and I did amazing in it at first. But the reason was is because everybody wanted to work with me because I was a dietitian so I could help them with nutrition on top of it. But I couldn't build the business because nobody wanted to coach. They just wanted me and to build in Beachbody. Back then, not today you had to build, so how long did you do Beachbody for?

Speaker 3:

Technically, I'm still a coach today because I was high enough ranked when I stopped coaching that they kept me in. However, now Beachbody has changed and they no longer do the pyramid way they did before Not pyramid scheme, because it's not a scheme, but they do. They're only doing referral links, affiliate links. Now I believe I don't know when that kicks in, because here's a link go, get Beachbody. You know those things will help you just as much, and then I'll tell you which programs to start at and advance to and I help them curtail instead of, you know, just follow them. Sometimes they're doing multiple different programs based on their body needs and stuff like that, because I help them determine, on the days that you're not feeling so good, this is a better workout, etc. Right, so I get a little more picky and choosy, but that allows them to do that and to not just have me doing a workout with this in the background no volume, no entertainment. People get bored. So they at least have that with the beach body piece. But in 2000, so I was really good at it.

Speaker 3:

In 2019, I started to feel. In 2018, I had our daughter and I was still working at the Naval Hospital when I decided to become a Beachbody coach, and that was really easy. But in March of 2019, my boss and I were just not getting along and I was starting to feel like I was having to choose between being a good worker or being a good mom, and there was quite a few things that broke me down to leaving my job. I got a different job, working from home, that, through different means, which I'm not allowed to say, I was released from that job. I looked for some part-time jobs, but every part-time job wanted me to get a shot. They wanted me to get a measles booster, and the measles booster at the time was recommended that you don't get pregnant for three to six months, and I refused to do it because I knew we wanted to have another baby within that time frame. So I was up.

Speaker 3:

I had received two or three jobs, but then they wanted me to get this shot and I was just like forget it, I might as well just go be an entrepreneur, I might as well just go do this, I might as well do the thing. And it wasn't even one week after I did that that I made a post on my homeowners association page. I'm a dietician and a personal trainer who wants some help and I was making $2,000 a week just from one thing. Now that eventually had to change because it was, like you know, as my dad would say, beginner's luck. More so me believing in myself. And then, you know, I brought in all of my childhood into my business and it's like it all built up and then kind of fell, and now I'm seeing how I made my business my childhood and I'm growing from there.

Speaker 2:

What do you mean by you?

Speaker 3:

made your business your childhood, so in my childhood I worked to fit in everywhere. I went right. It didn't take me long. The moment I decided to be a Beachbody coach, I did amazing. But then, as I was a Beachbody coach and there was more competition and you had to get into all the people, and then it was. You know, this is your downline, this is your upline, this is how you do it, this is how we do it.

Speaker 3:

I'm now having to fit into a box again of okay, I have to fit in with these people and I have to do these things, and I have to say these things and I have to sell these things. Well, I don't know how to do that, because I don't want people to take massive amounts of supplements. That's not what I do. So now I have to learn how they say it to try to sell it. So now I'm making my voice in my world sound like them. And then, when I became an entrepreneur of my own, that ad did amazing. But, like I said, things started to change because literally the four people that hired me, three of them moved their jobs, moved them within three months. So then I decided well, if I can do it this easy, let's go online. And so I started with ads and I did a couple of other things and I hired the wrong coach first, who basically told me when 2020 hit that I needed to get out of my business. I'd never make any money. He, thankfully gave me some of my money back, hired a different coach and really kind of catered to his box, but had my own voice. I was starting to understand. And then, in November of 2020, I just I said to Sean I was like I don't need any more things on the outside of me, it is all in here. I know it's all in here. That's what's stopping me. And you would think I would be smart enough to continue down that road, and I did.

Speaker 3:

But I dabbled in everything. I had so many coaches. You could ask me how to write a different post. I would. I was a great student and a great person. That became who I needed to be to fit in your box. So I looked great to every coach. Every coach loved me because I did the thing and it was always like, well, if you would do what Leslie would do, then you'd be there.

Speaker 3:

But I wasn't any further because it wasn't me, it was them.

Speaker 3:

I was only doing what they told me, so I turned my business into them.

Speaker 3:

Whoever was my coach, it didn't matter, you know who it was or what group I was in, because each coaching program comes with its set of coaching students, and so now you're in their bucket and I see that I actually have ceased all coaches at the moment and I have some people that are like you should continue on, and I was like no, I shouldn't, because if I'm a student, every other person's problem becomes mine. I won't take another coaching program or group program or anything like that until I'm definitive to know what's actually mine, and not Because I take it all on. And the last coaching program I had that I was like every single person that is talking about this. I'm like, yep, I got that, I got that, I got that. So all I'm doing is looking at the dirty laundry bag instead of all the gifts I have to give and the value I can provide and who I really am and my authentic voice, which is exactly what I did when I was a child.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's powerful that you're recognizing that though.

Speaker 3:

Wow, that's powerful, that you're recognizing that they want. You know, I'm really truthfully just okay. You want to do this, we're going to do this. I might think it's the weirdest thing in my life. I might not enjoy it, but I'm going to do this because I want you to know that you get to be yourself and that there's absolutely no reason why you have to be anybody else that's amazing, so must have been a tough realization for you to come to totally.

Speaker 3:

I mean what you, how you do. One thing is how you do everything right. I hate that line.

Speaker 2:

I seriously hate that line every time somebody says it, I have a love-hate relationship with it. I know I'm like please don't use this line.

Speaker 3:

I truthfully get it, but I started to see it in everything. It took me a little while. It took me a little while, but it's also why I was just voicing this with a friend today. I don't play to win, but I also don't play to lose. I tried to wind up in the middle for fear of what winning will cause me to lose or of what losing will cause me to lose, because as a child, that's how I had to do it. I couldn't be too good because I could offend a sister. Okay. So I couldn't be too good because I still wanted them to like me.

Speaker 3:

And when I did win and I came out of head, it wasn't a good for you kind of thing, and I think really the same with my friends, which is why I stayed that way. But if I was a loser, then I was ridiculed. Right, I was 100% ridiculed of my like little things, like when I had pink eye from a friend. They would call me the terminator. You know you're the loser, you're the one at the bottom. And they kept. They called me the terminator for probably a good two years of my life, and it wasn't even my fault, it was literally because my best friend didn't wash her hands and shoved her hand into my eye. So, anyways, neither here nor there, but those things. It was like I couldn't be a loser. So I actually just made a post on this yesterday or two days ago.

Speaker 3:

I have never won first place in anything no, team sport, nothing. I've never won first place, but I've also never come in last. I've always gotten a ribbon. It could be third, it could be second, but I've never won first and I've never been last. And I'm noticing that I'm playing that way in life. Now, right, I'm playing that way in life and so I love it.

Speaker 3:

To me, I love to find this out and to see that awareness to be like, wow, okay, so how do we change it? But that's new, because six months ago I would have told you it was from shame and guilt. Right, I would have held myself like if I would have figured this out six months ago, I literally would have been like God, you're an awful person. Like shame and guilt ruled my life for the majority because of my seven to eight year old self, who learned that I was still a sinner. So I then punished myself because I couldn't voice out loud.

Speaker 3:

You gave me this and I feel no different for fear that the priest would have judged me, my parents would have judged me. My parents would have judged me, my friends would have judged me. My teacher would have, you know, screamed at me and been like she's still a sinner. I had no idea. So I never shared. So everything really up until maybe six months ago, that I did in the majority of my life was so I wouldn't feel shame or guilt from someone else, that it was all internal to keep me all there, not in a group, not feeling connected, not having those people always being a little on the outside right. So it's just a pattern and it's awesome to catch it and to no longer give yourself grief for it and just move on from it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it really is. Now I'd love to transition a little bit. I saw a post you had made this was a while back, but on your Instagram and I loved the quote. I've got a weight loss fitness journey. I lost and maintained a 70-pound weight loss and it just really resonated. Thank you, I really resonated with this because always overweight growing up and everybody's what'd you do, how'd you do it? And he posted this quote do you wear other people's underwear? No, then, don't wear someone else's diet. I loved that because what works for somebody isn't necessarily going to work for somebody else. Like it might. You might be able to take on some of what somebody else did, but well different. I'd love if you could elaborate on that a little bit.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean that's the core of what I teach in Digestion Codes is that we're this is also how we're trained from a child, right? We're trained that we don't know when we're supposed to eat or drink. Only a baby really truthfully gets to know when they eat or drink, and that's if their parent is coherent and provided the information of feed your baby when your baby is hungry. Because Gabor Matei, who's a really big person and advocate for like trauma and how to raise children, he actually spoke about when he was younger and he was raised and things like that his mom had a journal and wrote in her journal you know, I know you're hungry, honey, but I'm sorry. The doctor says I can only feed you every four hours, so you have to sit there and cry in your own bed, and so there are moments where us as parents are not able to perform for the baby's needs, and that can occur based on a doctor's recommendation or anything right, so it can start early. But let's say, a normal, healthy baby that goes through the processes, who's fed when they need to be fed and they get changed when they need to be changed and are loved when they need to be loved and played with when they need to be played with and allowed to sleep. When they need to sleep, let's say we have that. That's normal. Everything gets widowed out of us once we become an eater of real food because we're told nope, dinner time's now. You're hungry too bad. You wait. Oh, you're hungry at school too bad. We don't snack in between meals. Oh, you're thirsty at school, too bad. When I was growing up, you weren't allowed water in class, right. Nowadays, at least, they allow you to have water bottles in class, but to to an extent, right. Depending on the school, they might have to have it completely closed when you walk in, because they got to make sure it's not vodka in the bottle or something and other places it's. You got to watch out for spills and watch out for people being rude to each other and stuff, right? So there's all of that. There's all of that in that, and so eating no longer becomes you.

Speaker 3:

Mom knows when I eat, dad knows when I eat, the teachers know when I drink. I need to go to the bathroom. The teacher says no, you just went, okay. So now I learn I don't even know when I need to release my own bowels, right, so we get ourselves talked out of our own body from an early age.

Speaker 3:

The doctor knows everyone outside of me knows my body but me. So the day that we choose that we want to change our body, where do we go for the answers Out there. The doctor's got to know because mom always took me to a doctor when I was little, when I was sick. So the doctor has my information, or my mom has my information because she's controlled all of my eating Right. And then I go to college and I gained 30 pounds because you know mom's not there. So I'm finally eating all the candy and junk food I possibly can, right, because she's not there to say no.

Speaker 3:

And then I think, okay, well, maybe mom has the answer. And mom says well, the way you got to do it is you don't eat sugar and you don't drink and you exercise X amount and maybe listen to mom, but none of those are what's right for your body. Your digestion code is we're all born with a code that tells us what's best for our body and it's been suppressed. We are not paying attention and that's part of our nervous system health too. That's why people can go six hours sitting on a computer starving and not notice they're starving, or notice they haven't peed or haven't had water or haven't done any of those things, or be clenching their entire body. Right, I'm sending out an email to my list and then all of a sudden you stop and you're like, wow, why am I so tight? Because you're putting all that in there, right, and that's all parts of the digestion code that I teach to really understand what's happening in your body.

Speaker 2:

That's so fascinating. Can you explain, like on a basic level, what the digestion codes are?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so there's four pieces. The first one is what I kind of call your code. It uses a combination of things, but it's like a Myers-Briggs kind of test, right. I use multiple different streams. Most people have heard of Myers-Briggs or human design or something like that. There's some pieces in there that really teach you about your body. Other pieces come into play your own DNA, your own piece. Like I really love Bruce Lipton, who stated our DNA is there on the day we're born, but not every baby is born with cancer.

Speaker 3:

If you have cancer in your genes and you have cancer later in your life, you called on the cancer in your body to be taken out, whether it's through food, exercise, diet, exposure to something or even a known pattern changing your brain, so we can heal ourselves. Right, I love to have that as an avenue. So part of that is in there, truthfully, of your code and determining this. And I always say to people who do this I do this because if you have children, you can uncover theirs and teach them theirs from an early age. This can help stop eating disorders, body image issues, all these kinds of things, when we can teach kids to be in control of their own body and know A kid can have empowerment, instead of a kid being told I just don't eat that because my mom says I don't. That's not empowering to a kid. A kid will get ridiculed and so they'll go against you. But if the kid knows, no, I know I don't eat that because I know how that makes me feel in my body. They come from a sense of empowerment and that gives them that right. Most people 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s we don't have empowerment when it comes to our bodies. We're lifeless and that's what code initial piece kind of gives you. Is your like, I kind of say, pieces, right, your DNA pieces? Then now I know what works best for me.

Speaker 3:

The second piece really is about breaking through your own rules, your limitations, your self-beliefs of, well, I just don't eat that. Is it really that you don't eat ice cream? Or were you just taught from your mother that ice cream caused her butt to be big? So now you think that's what's causing your butt to be big, because she programmed that into your mind. The third piece is really uncovering where you are not even listening to your body, right? So these are things like I'm not going to the bathroom when I need to go to the bathroom, I'm not drinking enough water, I'm not eating the foods that my body's asking me to eat, right, all of those pieces. And then, through all of those three units, you become your own advocate.

Speaker 3:

That's how people find out they have cancer before it's even shown on a test, right? They go to the first doctor like I have cancer. The doctor's like all your tests are fine, I don't care, I don't believe it, I'm going to somebody else. And then they do the most obscure test and they're like oh, you're right, you are in the beginning stages of cancer. That's a person who really knows.

Speaker 3:

I love to quote Will Smith's book from this too. Will Smith wrote a book called Will and he actually tells the story of conceiving their son with Jada Pinkett, the first son that they had, and I'm pretty sure the son was first. And he was like basically we finished. And she was like I'm pregnant. And he was like babe, it doesn't happen that fast. But she was right. She was like I know my body. She literally looked at him and said don't tell me, I know my body. And she was pregnant and I'm like that's impressive. That is a woman who knows her body Truthfully, just knows, I actually have a friend that has a very similar story. She was like I knew. I knew right after I was like we're going to have a baby. It was just like you know. I love that. That's like a true person that can understand the inner workings of their body and that's a part of your digestion code to know that piece.

Speaker 2:

That is so cool. Wow, and how long have you been doing digestion codes?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so really the pieces kind of come through divine timing and things like that. But really around the time I started I hit 30, because that was the time I really just decided to start. I decided to go on matchcom and I was like this is terrible, like reviewing my life between 29 to 30 and seeing how basically I swing, shifted 10 pounds, just give or take the month or the week. Based on that I was like there has to be a better way. So I unconsciously found the digestion codes, which I've termed different things around the time, but now have put it together and really pieced it so people get consistent results and they can just be free. You know, as I like to say, shame and guilt and sacrifice, free and just living in your best life.

Speaker 2:

That's so cool. Now have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? No, so he's a motivational speaker, he's an author, he's got a podcast called On Purpose, and he ends his podcast with two segments, and I've incorporated them into mine. The first segment is the many sides to us. There's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. Okay. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time choose to describe you as Outgoing? What is one word someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as Loving? What is one word you'd use to describe yourself Open? What is one word you'd use to describe yourself Open? What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would use to describe you Aggressive? What is one word you're embodying right now? Then the second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?

Speaker 3:

Best advice is the basis of everything.

Speaker 2:

Why is that the best?

Speaker 3:

Because anytime that I've tried to do it all myself, I fail blatantly. But anytime I just have the utmost faith that it's going to happen, I succeed and really like in ways that I just go. I never would have figured that one out on my own. What is the worst advice you've heard or received? This one comes in the form of. Really the worst advice I've ever received was basically through somebody thinking they knew how to run my life better than me. So it's more of all of the things of me being accepting for them to take over my life, for me and me following it. But I'd say if I had to pinpoint one, it would be my youth minister in high school that told me that my body was not allowed to be touched by me, only by others.

Speaker 2:

Okay, what is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

Speaker 3:

I'd probably say getting drunk every day.

Speaker 2:

If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

Speaker 3:

Here was a woman who truthfully loved, trusted, had faith and lived life to the fullest for herself, for her family and for those she served.

Speaker 2:

That's beautiful. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.

Speaker 3:

Everybody would have to read the book Think and Grow Rich. Think and grow rich Because I think if more people read simple books and really studied them, the world would be a completely different place. But people read to get through a book. Do you remember anything you learned in them? Or was it just a book? And I think that's really what it is it's reading a book to understand. And I think if more people could see that and open to the awareness that we get to be the creator of our life and that we get to do it, our world could be a completely different place.

Speaker 2:

I completely agree. It's interesting you said how many books, because I've even had guests tell me that they've read X amount of books so far this year and I'm like, are you like telling me this for a reason, and that's good, but can you teach me something from them, or is this just a number you know?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly, I think that's a self-worth thing there too. You know, somewhere along the line, how many books you read became a part of your self-identity as well yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it, do you? Have any final words for the listeners? No pressure, I just like to leave it to the guest.

Speaker 3:

I always tell people, go out and find who you really are and really look at. What are you basing yourself worth on and is that really what you choose, or is it not? Because I'm constantly looking at that and realizing, oh yeah, maybe last week I valued that, but this week is really not that quickly. But really taking the time to evaluate what boxes are you checking? Are you selflessly overachieving and is it?

Speaker 2:

time to just wholly embrace yourself for who you are. So true, I love that, thank you. And where can the listeners connect with you.

Speaker 3:

I am Leslie Urbis on most platforms. I'm pretty active on YouTube right now. I pretty much post a video every day or every other day. So Leslie Urbis on YouTube or my Facebook is my next favorite place I hang out, obviously, since I've been there the majority of my life here now, but my name is Leslie Piala Urbis on there because my maiden name is still in the background, which will be probably changed shortly.

Speaker 2:

So Sounds good, and I will link all of that in the show notes. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it, thanks. Thanks for having me, of course, and thank you guys for tuning in.

Speaker 4:

In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, Until next time.

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