Shownotes

It’s not a fad diet. It’s not another workout to add that will leave you disappointed. This episode holds the key to transforming your health and making the change stick with strategic ways to make sure you are taken care of first. Everything from the beginning stages of the journey to tips for meal prep.

If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co. Or leave a comment below!

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How you make health and fitness a priority
• Sharing and allowing support in the journey
• Non-scale victories
• Why you need a list of non-negotiables
• Seven tips to meal prep made easy

Episode References/Links:

• Website: https://www.sarafrenzafitness.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sara_frenza

Transcript

Lesley Logan
Hi, Be It babe. Okay, I’m super excited about today’s episode. Hello, how are you? How are you really? That’s that question that my Breathwork Coach likes to send an email and I always am like, “How am I really right now?” So how are you really? How’s it going? You know, it is New Year, lots of stuff going on. And I am excited for today’s guest for a couple of reasons. One, she’s a mom of two girls. Two, she had a job transformation and life transformation. And it all stemmed from her not enjoying where she was in her life at the time. And I think that if you are someone who has had those moments you’re like, “I’m just really frustrated. This is not going the way I want it to go.” And thinking that you are the only one a) you’re not the only one and b) that is a good place to be. It is. You’re like, “Lesley how’s that like a place to be?” Because you can’t you’re not going to change from a place of like, oh, it’s going okay. It’s fine. Like fine is not like a transformational place. But this fucking sucks. This blows, I don’t like how I feel. I don’t like, I don’t like the energy I’m putting out into the world. I don’t like how frustrated I get at things. Like those moments are key for making transformation for making change, for recognizing. Wow, I am so off the path that I wanted to be on right now. And I hope you will hear in her story is how, one, how she actually how she found her thing to do. And then also how she, how she reached out and told people and took them along on the journey. We do not have to do these things alone. Being it till you see it does not mean it is me and me alone. No, it means acting like the person who would have the thing you want to have. How would that person act right now. So remember my story of like, if I’m a CEO of a company, what would I do if I don’t know how to do this thing? Oh, the CEO of a company asked someone to help them they have people on their team. So who do I have to ask? Right? So these are the kinds of things I want you thinking about when it comes to taking care of yourself becoming the person you want to have now, not later. Becoming that person you want to be now, have that in your life now. We do not need to wait. So I really like this this episode again. You’ll hear her story, you’ll hear her journey. She’s gonna hear your tips. And I really we talked a lot in her BE IT action items because I’m all about prioritizing yourself and saving yourself time. And this is a really great way to do it. So anyways, have fun with this episode. Let me know how you like it, share it with a friend. By the way, if you leave a review on Spotify, Apple or anything like that, and you screenshot that review and you email it to the beitpod@gmail.com. We can give you a free gift course on how to create a habit quickly. So if you want to implement these BE IT action items more quickly in your life, you’re gonna want to have that course. So make sure you screenshot your review and send to the beitpod@gmail.com All right, here Sara Frenza.

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Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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EPISODE

Lesley Logan
All right, Be It babe. I am so excited because I have Sarah Frenza on the show today. And I actually met her through another podcast guests we’ve had on, you remember Jennifer van Barneveld, van Barneveld-Pe. Wow, I said it’s so good when I interviewed her. She’s a dear friend of mine. And so I love how small the world is, when when women who support women just get together. It’s like, oh, here’s like, you know, so and so. And it just the the daisy chain of awesomeness continues. And so Sara, thank you for being on the show. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you’re working on these days?

Sara Frenza
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here. So first of all, I’m a mom to two girls, and I’m in nutrition and body transformation coach. I’m a published fitness model and writer, two time cover model and owner of Sara Frenza of Fitness and Nutrition. And that’s a little bit about what I do right now after going through, you know, my own body transformation, or actually I should call life transformation. I decided that I also wanted to help other women, you know, make their health and fitness a priority and help them and guide them through that. So that’s when I decided to also you know, become a coach myself and try and help women feel incredible like like I had experienced going through you know, while I was making my health and fitness a priority.

Lesley Logan
Wow, I, so you would not haven’t always been on this journey. You were doing something before. What made you realize that like, you had to make your health and fitness a priority? Like what was the was like, the you know, how there’s like … (Sara: The moment.) The moment. What was that moment?

Sara Frenza
So so with me, during both of my pregnancies, you know, I had gained a lot of weight. Yeah. And I felt really, really uncomfortable with where I was. But besides all of that, what had happened is that I started feeling some physical symptoms. So I started getting a lot of lower back pain, I started getting plantar I had plantar fasciitis as well, too. And I was we were, we were building a new home. And during that time, I was living with my parents for nine months. And both my girls were four and two years old. And I was experiencing a lot of pain. And I often had to ask my parents who were in their 70s to help me because you know, I don’t know if you’ve, if you know what plantar fasciitis is, if you’ve ever experienced it. (Lesley: It’s terrible.) It’s brutal. It’s terrible. Like, I thought my foot was broken. So it was at that point where I felt, wow, I am not even 40 years old. And I have a two year old and a four year old and I’m relying on my parents and also my husband to help me. And I felt like I needed to give more to my girls, you know that I wasn’t showing up for them. And I knew it was because you know, I wasn’t taking care of my health and fitness. I wasn’t exercising at that time. I wasn’t really making nutrition a priority. And I felt that that moment. This is what happens when you don’t (Lesley: Yeah) take care of your health and fitness. Right. (Lesley: Yeah) So it was it was that moment that I decided I need to do something. And not only that, like, I remember going to the chiropractor, and the chiropractor was trying to help me like recover from my lower back pain and everything and she’s like, “Your, your, your core is so weak, like, you have to work on that.” And, and I was like, “Okay, like she’s telling me this, my my body is physically telling me something’s not right.” And it was at that moment that I decided I needed to do something. So I started off with just trying to eat a little bit healthier, like, you know, make some better choices when it came to nutrition. But then I one of my friends worked with Coach JVB you know, Jenny (Lesley: Yeah) and Jennifer van Barneveld-Pe. And I saw her amazing transformation. And I said, like, “What, what did you do?” Because I was really looking for help at that time. (Lesley: Yeah) And that’s when I reached out to Jenny. And I hired her as a coach. (Lesley: Yeah) And she really, she got me into the best shape of my life. But she also taught me a very sustainable way to live a healthy lifestyle. You know, it was no like fad diet. It was just about lifting to get stronger. And it was about this is how we properly nourish your body. (Lesley: Yeah) And it was you know, she she’s amazing. You know her right?

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I think like I love, I just want to highlight a couple of things like I think when I loved also in your intro, you said like life transformation. I think people can get really hung up on like, if you’re focusing on your fitness and nutrition that it must be because you want to look a certain way and like that might be part of it. That could be some people’s motivation. But it doesn’t have to be, it can also just be that like, you have this one body. And if you want to keep up with life, (Sara: Yes) you it there has to be some muscular abilities in there. Your core is very key, it has to be strong, otherwise you will have lower back pain. Plantar fasciitis is no joke. I mean runners get it too, a lot of people. That’s why I love Pilates because there’s specific exercises that actually force the foot to stretch in a way so you can prevent that. (Sara: Oh good.) It’s cool. Yeah. (Sara: Yeah) And my clients hate it because I’m like, “No, I want that p… I want those toes curled the other way.” And they’re like, “But that’s I don’t like to do that.” I’m like, “Your, if your foot can’t do that, you’re gonna have plantar fasciitis my loves.” But I am I love that we point this out because I think one, we always have to be ready. So if you’re listening this and you’re like, you’re this sounds like something you’ve been like thinking about, but you’re not there yet. It’s, it’s okay. Like, no one can force you to get on the journey sooner than you want. And so until you’re ready, (Sara: Yeah) you know, keep paying attention to the things that you want that you don’t like. But you know, know that that’s the thing. And then also, you had you got help. And I (Sara: Yeah) think that that’s worth highlighting, because I think so often we see people go through whatever their transformation is, whether it’s a job or relationship or anything, and we think, ah, you know, wow, I couldn’t do it. They waited. Well, you didn’t do it alone, like most people that you see who go through a transformation, except for like that Tom Hanks movie where he was by himself. And even then, they had Wilson, like, we don’t, we don’t go through things alone. (Sara: No) So so how, what what did you find helped you in your transformation the most? Was it the weights? Or was it your, like, the way you fueled yourself? Was it the way that you prioritized yourself? Was it easy to do these things? Like did your family get on board?

Sara Frenza
Yeah, well, you know, what, here’s so I want to point out one thing as well, too, like I, I’m a mom, I have two young kids, I had a, I had a full time career in marketing and sales. I got the help because I didn’t want to waste time. Right? Was the biggest thing is like, I didn’t want to waste time. And for me to in order to make my health and fitness a priority, like I really needed to be organized with my time. And, and what helped me, I mean, it was both of them, the nutrition and the strength training that really helped me. But in terms of getting like, really, really organized with myself, like, I had to spend the time on the weekend to plan out my week and do meal, prepping and setting that all up so that I can properly you know, fuel myself and my family. And my husband was really supportive, super onboard, you know, wasn’t was eating everything that I would, I would make, and also my girls, I was introducing them to new foods as well, too. And actually teaching them, we need protein, you know, it’s really important to eat the protein. And now they make fun of me all the time. Because they you know, where’s your protein, because I’ve been teaching them that as well. But they also see me lifting weights to get strong. And that is one thing, you know, that I really, really want to always teach them is like, “Mommy is lifting weights to be strong, so that I can play with your kids one day.” You know, “Mommy is lifting weights to be strong, so that I can do all the things that you want to do.” Right. So I’m really encouraging them to lift and get strong. And we work out together on Saturdays, sometimes, (Lesley: Oh, I love that.) you know, downstairs at my home gym, and you know, they try to work out with me, but the message is always, we need to get strong, and I want you to get strong as well, too. And that’s the most important thing is that we’re lifting to to get stronger so that we can have a better life. (Lesley: Yeah) But I think both of them together, it was both the strength training and the nutrition part of it that really it’s a combination of the two of them.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, and it sounds like your family was was on board because they could tell like the goals of it. And I think like, you know, I think a lot of times, it doesn’t matter what their goal is, if you’re listening to this that goal doesn’t have to be a body transformation, it can be a vision of a job or switching up a schedule or, or anything like that. (Sara: Yeah) If we we have to communicate what that goal is and why we’re doing it so that people around us can get on board. Otherwise, they don’t (Sara: Yeah) actually know how to help you. And so they might … seem like obstacles, and I’m sure there’s some dicks out there. But like most people who love you, want to support you and whatever that transformation is, but we have to communicate that. And since you’re (Sara: Yeah) I do want to go back to like how you switch careers. But while we’re on this topic, like you’re a coach, you coach, a lot of women. Have you seen, have you seen that most of the women that you coach, the people in their life get on board? Or have you had to work with them on how to handle maybe those people who aren’t on board?

Sara Frenza
Yeah, I always tell, tell my clients that you know, speak to your partner, right? And let them know what this what this is all about and what what you’re doing because some, you know, if you don’t communicate that with your partner, and you’re kind of like doing your own thing they might feel resentment towards you, that things are changing, and they don’t want to do it either. But I think it’s important. Yes, I do talk to my clients, like you need to communicate, but I also let them know there are going to be people that are not supportive in your journey. There’s always going to be those people that are not supportive of your journey and how to deal with that as well. Right. And, you know, as long as the people that are closest to you, you’re communicating with them and they could see that it’s not just about a body transformation. It’s more really about a life transformation. Because, you know, even when I coach my clients weekly, we talk about all of the non scale victories that are happening in their life. They’re sleeping better, their energy levels are higher, they’re they have the ability to like, move and play with their children, you know, your life is changing. They’re building up confidence within their life that they can, you know, it has a domino effect and everything else that they’re doing, you know, (Lesley: Yeah) they show up better for everyone else around them.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I want to highlight you said non scale victories. Y’all, this is like really important to me, we’ve had my friend Jenny Schatzle on as well. And she’s really big on non scale victories, because for so many reasons, the scale should not be the thing that tells us we’re good (Sara: No) enough. Or we’re (Sara: Yeah, yeah) gonna have a good day. And I really don’t (Sara: Absolutely) understand that, that that how quickly we were trained that that scale is what tells us if we’re good enough for today, but really like, are you sleeping? And like, do you have energy, one of one of my guests who was just on Claire Sparrow, she talked about transformation, she is actually a pelvic floor therapist, coach. (Sara: Oh) And so she had a client who had a victory, which was, I just played cricket with my kids. And I didn’t even think that I couldn’t do it. Like, it didn’t even occur to me that and she’s like, and I didn’t leak and didn’t have any problems. And so like, those are the reasons for like, those are the wins you’re looking for. It’s not like, (Sara: Absolutely) I think we didn’t really hyper focus on the actual thing we’re doing. But there’s other things and there’s other wins around us that we have to focus on. And so when you prioritize your health, and well, wellness, like, there’s going to be other things that go that get better. And we have to be attuned to that. So we can see, and we can share it with our family, because maybe you might have someone who doesn’t understand that you prioritizing yourself actually benefits them. So you can actually sha… share those wins. Hey, this week, I actually got excited to, you know, go to dinner with you, as opposed to like, I’m exhausted today. This was the longest day of my life. (Sara: Yeah) So I want to go back in time, because you said it earlier, you were in marketing at the time, like so, I imagine (Sara: Yeah) like what I know of marketing, and that’s a stressful business. That’s a lot of hours. You’ve young girls, you have a husband. And now you coach people. So one, what was how, what was that transformation, like in your life to go from working on this job to work on this job? And then also like, how did it, was it like the easiest bridge to make? Or like, what were the obstacles along the way?

Sara Frenza
Yeah, so once I really experienced and I had worked with Coach JVB, I saw how much my life has cha… had changed. Like, I felt like I was myself, but better, I felt like I was showing up as my best self every day. And I thought, you know, I always was walking around feeling like, there’s more to life to this, like, I don’t feel like what I am doing is what I meant to be doing. Like, I was really good at my job, you know, and I enjoyed it. But I really walked around feeling like there, I needed to do something more. And it was that point, you know, I talked to my coach at the time and, and I told her, you know, I think I want to start coaching women. I would really love to do this. I want other women to experience this. Because I have seen how much it has really impacted my life, not only the way I was looking, but it was honestly my mindset and how it was showing up everywhere else in my life. I could really see that I was so confident. All my goals that I wanted to reach all of a sudden I had the ability to do it. (Lesley: Yeah) You know, things that I had put on the backburner for years, you know, when when I put my health and fitness I made my health and fitness a priority. And I felt strong not only physically but also mentally, I was able to accomplish all these goals. So then she was very supportive of me, kind of gave me direction in terms of like what certifications I wanted to take. And part of my certification for one of them is I actually had to work with people as part two in order to get my certification. So that’s how I started coaching women. So I had three women that I was coaching for, you know, for free as part of what to get my certification. And then I kind of did it on a on a at the side. (Lesley: Yeah) And because I was already sharing my story on Instagram, like I’m very active on Instagram and I was always sharing my story, sharing my recipes, giving everybody tips like really just wanting to help people (Lesley: Yeah) live a more healthier lifestyle (Lesley: Yeah) that when people found out that I was coaching, I had a lot of interest. So I had to make a decision. You know, things were just snowballing for me, so many people wanted to work with me that I had to make a decision. Do I want to pursue this full time or do I still want to, or do I want to keep it as a side hustle? And I went to my employer and I, and I told them, you know, this is what I want to do. Can I go part time so that I could focus on my business because I couldn’t do it having a full time and (Lesley: Yeah) it being a side hustle. And they were really understanding, thankfully, they were very understanding and very supportive and said, “Yeah, no problem. We’ll let you go part time.” And my business just kept growing and growing and snowballing and and when I told them that I was envisioning a year until I could leave. Right. I wish …

Lesley Logan
… I had such a parallel story. So yes, keep going. I know where it’s going now.

Sara Frenza
So I told them, like I told them in January, it’s it’ll probably be a year from now that I will need to leave full time because I was thinking I was thinking, I don’t know how quickly my business is gonna go. (Lesley: Yeah) And it came a month later, not even a month and a half later, I said to them, “I’m sorry, but I have to leave the end of April.” So I told them beginning of January, and then I gave them enough notice so that they could find somebody I said like, “You have to find somebody so I can train them.” So by the end of April, I went, I was out of my other job and full time doing the coaching beginning of May. (Lesley: Yeah) So (Lesley: Yeah) it just snowballed.

Lesley Logan
So I so a couple things for those who are like following along with the story, like, listen, listen to it, she shared her whole journey the whole time. And I know that like when we’re in it, it doesn’t feel very good to share. It doesn’t have to be that you share like your rock bottoms. But you can share your passion for why you’re doing something the purpose for it’s the same reason she shared with her family, so they could be on board with her with her new changes and her prioriti… prioritizing herself. Then she was also sharing that with people who are following her so that when she said, “Now I’m doing this,” she took them along on this journey. Again, the more you can take people on the journey with you, the easier the journey is, it’s not fun by yourself. And then, because you’re so passionate about it, and because you were sharing with people what worked for you, people could see like you’re walking the talk. And I think this is where even if you’re like, “Lesley, I’ve already gone through my journey. It’s too late for me to do that right now.” Here’s the deal, if you are not walking your talk, you people can tell and it becomes you feel like you have to market yourself more. But if you are sharing, “Hey, this is my schedule for this week of me making sure I have my sessions. And this is my schedule this week so that I can see my kids and do the thing that I love.” If you share those things, people go, “Oh my gosh, like, I want to be able to work with someone, this person knows how to do that. And I’m struggling with that. I’m struggling with prioritizing, myself first.” So it’s not that you’d be perfect at it. Because we always know at this podcast that that’s boring. But sharing your (Sara: Yeah) process allows people to resonate with you and see that you get what they’re going through, and that you understand where they’re coming from. And that makes a huge difference. When I was, when I became a Pilates instructor, um, I thought I would just do it on the side as well. And then I got so busy. I was like, teaching at 6am and 7am at the gym, driving in LA traffic all the way across town to run my store. I was a manager of this boutique. And then I would two nights a week close up there the night the mornings that I didn’t do 6am’s those nights, I had a 7pm client, right. So I like left the store at 6:30 drove across town to the studios renting space, taught my evening clients. And then on my day off, I was teaching clients and so I was basically working seven days a week at this point. And I loved it and didn’t realize it until I was like, “Wow, I don’t actually have any way of like saying yes to anything other than this.” (Sara: Yeah) And so, so I was like, “Can I go, hi, can I go part time? And I’ll train my replacement. And I’ll be here, I’ll do this two days a week and then I’ll you know, I can do everything before after on other days.” Anyways 30 days later, I realized that I couldn’t do that. And so before they fired the person that was part time already. I was like, “I just did, I just have to go. I can’t do it. I’m too busy.”

Sara Frenza
Yeah. And that’s such a great feeling to to be able to do that. And I think you know, when you’re when you’re doing what you’re so passionate about, like for me it didn’t feel like a job even when I had my side hustle. It was just I was so focused on it and it was probably the same for you as well. I was just so focused on it was really, really passionate about it. I scheduled my days so that I can do what I wanted to do. And I think you know, once you go into you know, I’ve never owned my own business before this is the first time you know I’ve ever owned my own business, but I think managing those two really gave me a lot of skills to become an entrepreneur. And (Lesley: Yeah) like, “How do I organize everything? What’s the priority to me? What needs to get done right away. So like, I’m not wasting time.” So during that transition period where I was working a full time job doing this as a side hustle, being a mom, being a wife, you know, running my family, you know, I really needed to my days were completely scheduled out. (Lesley: Yeah) And I needed it to be like that, because I had to, it was a priority for me, I really, really wanted (Lesley: Yeah) wanted this.

Lesley Logan
So I have a question because a lot of times what I what happens to people is they find something that like changes their life, they then become the teacher of that thing, which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s how we all get there. And then their ability to participate in their own version of that their own time. So for you it’s training like working yourself out for maybe like doing my own Pilates sessions. For yoga teachers, it’s often their own yoga like, did that happen in your life? Or and if so, how did you handle it? Or how did you make sure it didn’t happen? Like how did you make sure that your workouts even when you had a full time job and the kids and this and your side hustle. How did you keep your self a priority?

Sara Frenza
It was non negotiable for me. It’s always been non negotiable, non negotiable for me, because I know when I don’t do that, I know how my life looks like, I can go back and remember how my life looks like when I didn’t put those things into place. So for me, I always, you know, I always do my morning workouts, it became a habit, it became part of my lifestyle. So my workouts are non negotiable. I work out, I get up early, that’s when I get them done. I’m a mom, I have a career, this is the only time that it fits into my schedule. And the other thing was with respect to nutrition is that I I spend the time meal planning and meal prepping on the weekend. (Lesley: Yeah) Especially Sunday’s is my meal prep Sundays, I do some maybe Saturday or Friday as well, too. But that is really, really key for me to make sure that my meals are organized for myself and my family for the entire week because things will always come up. (Lesley: Yeah) And I know that if my nutrition is not on point, I’m not reaching my nutritional goals. I’m not feeling really good. And it’s it’s very important to me. (Lesley: Yeah) So these things become non negotiable to me.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, we’ve had some other guests on who’ve talked about like, like, like nutrition. And the reality is y’all is like, I think, at least I think it’s changed a lot. But I remember growing up whenever you’d hear about nutrition and like recipes, all of a sudden, like I would told my grandfather, “I was on a gluten free diet.” And he’s like, “You’re so skinny.” I’m like, “It’s not a weight loss thing. It’s just like how I eat my food.” You know what I mean? (Sara: Yeah) So like, I think we underestimate like, no matter where you are in your journey, you’re the ability to fuel your body correctly and the way it needs to be. And we’ve had other guests on who’s like, it’s so specific, every single one of us has a specific need for how we have to get our through our day. You can’t be the best version of yourself in anything if you are not fueled. I am a hangry bitch. Like I have, like, if I have not set on a normal cadence. I mean, (Sara: Yes) I mean, the only time I can go out of my cadence is on a flight because like you’re just who even knows and I would rather not eat that food. So it’s like, I mean, even then I know that the food’s gonna be terrible. So I have like these protein cookies, and I’m like, this, (Sara: Yeah) pretty much gives me everything that I need, I’m going to feel really good. And I can get to I can get to the next meal without being a hangry person, but it’s distracting. Your brain doesn’t fire you, you can’t get those ideas and you think, “Oh, it’s because I’m tired. But I slept last night.” It’s not you didn’t sleep, it’s that you didn’t fuel yourself for the day your car can’t run on empty, you know?

Sara Frenza
Absolutely, absolutely. And actually, you know, a lot of women that come to me are really under eating a lot. And they don’t understand, you know, what’s going on? Like, “Why am I so tired? Why do I have brain fog? Why, you know, what, why don’t I have any strength? Like, why can I sleep?” And then I make sure that they’re properly fueling themselves and eating the amount of food that they need to eat. And they cannot believe in two to four weeks, how much better they feel. (Lesley: Yeah) And all in all I tell them it’s because we’re properly nourishing your body. You’re now your body has the fuel that it needs, so that you can run it at an optimal level. And I think like I’m in my 40s, a lot of my clients are between the ages of 40 to 60 and they’ve been brought up to be through this diet culture of like trying not to eat, you know (Lesley: Yeah) or not being you know, and I’m like ….

Lesley Logan
Oh you’re 100% correct. Iliza Shlesinger who someday I should have on the show, y’all if you know her, please hook a sister up. But she said one of her most recent specials says like, ladies, whatever weight you were at 12 that’s what the world expects you to stay forever, no matter what, like, you just have to stay at this. Like, that’s basically what like, all the magazines brought us up on like, you know, all these like, under 100 calorie snacks like all this stuff. (Sara: Yeah) And it’s like actually like, you know, if you’re eating (Sara: eating more) properly, if you’re eating good foods, you can eat more, you can have more (Sara: Yeah) food. And like, I didn’t know that I definitely had to like retrain my mind on those things that I remember. Also, like, make sure there’s no fat in anything, which just means there’s more sugar in everything, and no wonder you’re hungry and cranky.

Sara Frenza
Yeah. And the other thing too, is that, you know, we’re not getting enough protein in our diet is what I’m seeing, like with a lot of you know, a lot of women as well too, and they feel so much better. But my mission is really to teach women like, this is how we have to properly nourish our bodies, you know, (Lesley: Yeah) and if you’re strength training, and fueling your body properly, you’re going to feel strong, that how you look will be a byproduct, (Lesley: Yeah) right of everything that you’re doing. But it’s just, you know, trying to really educate everyone and my client’s, like, you need to fuel your body at the end of the day, you know, (Lesley: Yeah) and none of this, this thing that you’ve learned all these years, like, get it out of your mind, we’re going in a completely different direction. And I see more and more coaches out there, like myself to have the same methodology or the same type of thing, like, we need to feel your body you have to eat. You will feel a lot better.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. It’s so true. And like, I just keep thinking, you know, to, you know, especially for the mamas listening to this, like, actions are caught not taught. We’ve had many moms in the health and wellness space on here. And they all are talking about like, they’ve all said it, you have to prioritize yourself first so that your kids also (Sara: better) see that that’s, that’s actually a future for me. You know, like, I think it was Jenny Schatzle, who had like, one of her, one of her nieces, or somebody that said, “Oh, I can’t I, I wish I could be a mom and a journalist.” And they’re like, “What?” And it was like, like, the kid thought they could only be one thing, because they only see people like do one or the other. They had kids, and they didn’t live their dream, or they didn’t have kids and they live their dream. And so, you know, the more we can show, the next generation, like actually prioritizing yourself first is not is a non negotiable, and it makes you a better person, fueling yourself properly non negotiable. It’s not a privileged thing. It’s like, and it and we might have to get creative, depending on what you have access to and what finances you have. But like it is a possibility. And it’s and it shouldn’t be something you wait till later. And you’ll just like, you know, I’ll just have this like, this carrot thing over here. That’s fine, have the carrot but like, also, like have the sandwich too. You know? (Sara: Yeah, yeah.) Like, I think what is what I what I love about your story is that you went from someone who had like this intense job, had these kids who loved your family, obviously, we’re doing great things with them. But you didn’t feel good to going out making sure you felt good and getting your family on board. And now you teach women how that they can have that too. And I think it’s really frickin cool. So y’all, we’re gonna take a quick break and I am going to ask, I’m gonna make sure you know where you … find Sara, follow her. We also have some BE IT action items. I’m really excited for you to hear. Okay, Sara, where can people find you, follow you, work with you?

Sara Frenza
Okay, well I’m very very active on Instagram. So you can find me there. My handle is sara, so @sara_frenza. And you can also visit my website which is sarafrenzafitness.com. Those are the two places that you could find me and if you want to email me, my both my email contact information are on both Instagram and my website.

Lesley Logan
Wonderful. Okay, bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps. What are your BE IT action items for our listeners today?

Sara Frenza
Okay, so my action items are how to seven tips to meal prep made easy. So number one is going to be plan what you want to eat for the week, planned out your meals for the week. Know what you want, then go grocery shopping to get everything that you need. Because I’m telling you, when you plan out what you want to eat, it will save you time, it will save you money. The second thing that I will recommend when it comes to meal prepping is to batch cook. And so this is a really great one. What I like to do is to make one protein and one carb and then I’ll make dif… sorry, two proteins, two carbs and then I make different meals out of it. So that you know I’m creating maybe four or five different meals and of those those two carbs and those two proteins. The other thing is to freeze your food. So if you’re batch cooking and making a lot of things ahead of time, you can freeze food so that you have it there for following weeks. This has really helped me throughout my meal prep. So on those days that you’re in a pinch, and maybe something didn’t go the way that that you wanted to, you could just pull something out of your freezer. The other thing for meal prepping is, I always kind of pre pre weigh out my food or pre put them in containers ahead of time. So if I’m making my lunches for the entire week, I will put them in containers so that I have my lunch ready to go. And you don’t have to think about it. Same with dinners, as well. I’ll have that pre done ahead of time so that they’re ready to go. With fruits and veggies, I will chop up all my fruit, chop up all my veggies. So and with specially with the fruit, I’ll put them in little containers so that my fruits ready to go for the whole week. And I can quickly grab that and go if I’m going to work or I’m on the road. And the other thing that I recommend is preparing your breakfast for the entire week. So you could make things like protein muffins, you could do you said protein cookies, (Lesley: Yeah) I love protein cookies.

Lesley Logan
I just made overnight oats for the week. And it’s not the only part of my breakfast, but it’s like part of the breakfast and and the reason I ate that, I made a whole batch for the week is like it’s so easy to scoop out and I could put my (Sara: Yeah) collagen in there. I put my fiber in there. I put some other supplements in there. And so I know like, okay, if I’m in a rush, and I like slept in or the dogs got crazy like before I got on this podcast I do at one dog walk into a cactus. I was like dealing with that. I’m like, if this is if I have to eat this on the go, it’s got all the carbs, all the protein I would have wanted, like that’s I’m good to go. I don’t have to. Because I mean, that’s the brightest meal most people skip and it’s like, hello, you just woke up your body needs some stuff in it.

Sara Frenza
Absolutely. So yeah, if you get your prep… like your breakfast ready, I always encourage my client like protein muffins, overnight oats, protein cookies, get your breakfast ready for the entire week, get some meals done like you can, you could choose two, I do two meal prep throughout the week, I do Sunday, and then I do Wednesday. So Sunday, I’m meal prepping from Sunday to Wednesday. And then Wednesday night I’ll do another little mini mini meal prep. And maybe I’ll make some easier kind of foods that I could just throw on the barbecue or in the oven for the rest of the week. But then I have you know, everything ready to go for the entire week. But the breakfast at least you know you have it done for five days in a row. And if you make things like protein muffins or cookies, you can freeze them too. (Lesley: Yeah) I double batch and cook everything. So that I have one week I’m making protein muffins. And the next week I don’t have to because I already have stuff that I can pull out on out of my freezer. So

Lesley Logan
I love this so much and also like so my I remember my mom would actually batch cook, and like it… (Sara: Cool) Because you she we were on a tight budget and so you couldn’t just buy groceries and nothing could go bad. So like they would plan out. And they go, “Okay, well, these nights would actually be leftovers from the food from these nights. And then this and it’d be leftover from the food of this night.” And so that way they could stretch the thing I know Brad even mentioned, like growing up his mom and another mom would like go to each other’s house and like then the kids are playing. (Sara: Yeah) And then they could both meal prep for the whole for both households. And that afternoon and yes, you guys this does require like a block of time on your Sunday or whatever day it is. (Sara: Yeah) But if you didn’t like with Brad, I mean, the kids are then playing and you can just like actually focus on this thing over here. And so there’s ways of getting creative and making it a possibility in your life.

Sara Frenza
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll give you an example. Right. So this is what I would do. So I would make like for example, sweet potato fries like sweet potato air fry, air fried, then I would do brown rice, then I would do ground turkey. And then maybe we’ll do shredded chicken in in instapot. This is like kind of my ‘go to’ thing but out of these meal, out of those two carbs. And those two proteins, I would make stuff peppers. I would do buffalo chicken dip, I would make chicken stir fry, and then I would make egg roll in a bowl. So I’ve got four different meals there and the stuffed peppers, I could freeze. (Lesley: Yeah) So I can make you know a large batch of it. And that’s typically what I do every weekend is and I that’s what I teach my clients to do as well because most of them are busy. We’re all busy. (Lesley: Yeah) And but at the end of the day, you know, you’re saving time throughout the week. For me I didn’t I love doing this because when I’m done work my dinner’s ready. (Lesley: Yeah) You know, I’m not spending an hour and the other thing too is is I say, if you’ve already got the mess and everything out already, you might as well make the you know, you might as well (Lesley: Yeah) … that mess and all of that food for the whole week. And another tip I want to give you ladies that are moms that are listening here. Make your lunches for your kids for the next three days if you can, (Lesley: Yeah) and that’s been a huge time saver as well too.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, I mean, I, when Brad is in a cooking mood when he has got the time, he’ll just cook all the chicken breasts like why cook, (Lesley: Yeah) why just cook chicken breasts for the two of us like just, you bought this many just cook them all. Some of them get cut up really small for a salad. Some of it gets like use in a different way. But like it is, it is so much easier because then we’re we’re cleaning one pan. We’re cleaning one pan (Sara: That’s correct.) or not like that pan (Sara: That’s right.) every single day. And then of course, (Sara: Exactly) guess what? No one wants to clean that pan for dinner the next day. (Sara: Yeah) So, what are we having? I guess we’ll have that, you know I mean.

Sara Frenza
Exactly. And that’s what I love too… I’ll freeze like we will do the same thing. And I’ll freeze like we’ll cook up a whole bunch of chicken breasts and then I’ll freeze half of it. Or if I’m doing ground turkey, ground chicken, ground beef, I do you know, a few pounds of it. Half of it, I’ll use this week, the other half, I’ll freeze and I’ll take it out. Brown rice freezes really well too, cooked brown rice, there’s all of these things that you could do to really stay on top of it. And I teach my clients that as well to like, “Listen, if you’re already doing this, double batch it and (Lesley: Yeah) make more and freeze it. Make your life a lot easier so that you’re not doing these huge meal preps every week, like you’ve already got it out, double batch it and do it.”

Lesley Logan
And what I and y’all what I love about this is it doesn’t really actually you don’t have to be on any body transformation, any kind of meal prepping is key for saving time. (Sara: And money, and money.) And money was so much money. I mean, you heard me say, my family did it because we they were on a budget like this is all that can be spent at the grocery store. Nothing can get thrown away, you know. So like, I think a lot of times we we think of it as a luxury but really it’s like the the key to giving you more time back, more time to spend with your family, less time making when you’re tired at the end of your workday the last year and it was like, “What am I going to cook tonight?” So then (Sara: Yeah) what do we do? We order in, then we don’t feel good, we spent more money. (Sara: Yeah) And we’re back in this (Sara: Yeah) vicious cycle of not feeling good enough because we didn’t take the time to prioritize what was make, what would be unnecessary to make us feel good.

Sara Frenza
Yeah. And then taking that first step to like really plan out for the whole week, like what are you gonna have for breakfast? What are you going to have for lunch? What are you going to have for dinner? Even having that plan, you know, and getting the meal prep done. I just feel when you’re organized like that, like you feel so much more confident going into your week, knowing that, I made my nutrition a priority. I’m still making my health and fitness a priority. I’m feeding my family with the foods that I know they’re going to feel good about and I’m going to feel good about. So it’s really key for me and I continue to do it. I still share you know, and I and what I’ve learned in my tips, I share it with my clients. And if you’re if your audience wants it, too. I have a whole seven tips to meal prep with recipes so that (Lesley: Amazing) they can use that. Yeah.

Lesley Logan
Wonderful. We’ll make sure we get that link in the show notes for everyone. Y’all, this this has been so great. I started thank you for sharing your journey and allowing people to see that like they can, you can do this with like little kids, you can do this with owning your own business. You can do this with a husband. I think it’s really easy for people to think, “Oh, they must have more time than me.” And really we all are have the seven the same seven days, the same 24 hours. It’s really about utilizing some of them in a strategic way to make sure that you’re taking care of first. And so how are you going to use these tips in your life? What are your takeaways from this podcast? Make sure you tag Sara, tag the @be_it_pod. Share this with a friend. Let us know and until next time, Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
Be It Till You See It is a production of Bloom Podcast Network.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host Lesley Logan. And me Brad Crowell. Our associate producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan
Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to our designer Mesh Herico for creating all of our visuals, (which you can’t see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all the video each week, so you can.

Brad Crowell
And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each episode, so you can find it on our website. And finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.