Kim Vopni (00:01.356)
Michelle, I'm really excited to have you on today and share your amazingness with my audience.
Well, I've known about you and followed you for many, years. I was just telling you off air that one of your coaches in Wonder Woman Official is a gal who had taken my course and has been very vocal about her pelvic floor in her competitions and her training clients. And of course I follow your mom. And recently you were on Dr. Gabrielle Lyon's podcast and you brought up the pelvic floor and I was in the background cheering. You couldn't hear me, of course, but I
cheering that that you brought that up and I love that the pelvic floor is finally getting some...
airtime and then I reached out to you and I just sort of said I want to I want to I want to go a little deeper I felt like it was sort of like we could have you could have gone deeper and I you graciously accepted an opportunity to talk more I came on your podcast and now you're here with me so thank you so much for joining me and if you can start by just telling people who you are how did you get into the world of fitness and what brought you here
Michelle MacDonald (01:11.309)
Love it. Thank you so much for having me on the show, Kim. It's an absolute honor and
It is, we're in a really exciting space. about the dogs. We're in such an exciting space around women's health as well because with social media, with these platforms, we're able to so directly and swiftly influence the conversations for good and for bad. we're on the, I like to think like we're doing our best to make sure great information, evidence-based information is getting out to as many as possible. So I have been, I'm 55.
Kim Vopni (01:19.906)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (01:45.417)
I have been in the space of fitness, I want to say, my entire life. I've experienced coaching. As a child, I've been in all sports. I've been in mixed sex sports, as well as women-only sports since I was young. And did college sport. Then spent a long time in the yoga world in my 30s. And graduated to bodybuilding in my 40s. And throughout that,
what has always been a driving force for me. And I say this even from the age of 12. was reading Gloria Steinem when I was 12. And I was always just very aware of the differences between the sexes and what they experienced. I was a small town gal in Canada. It was just so obvious that what we got in girls' coaching and girls' sports was very, very different, both qualitatively and quantitatively than in guys' sports.
Nothing really changed when I went to university. don't see significant, well I do see significant changes with gals these days, which is wonderful. You can see that in the Olympics, although there's still a gap, there's still a divide when it comes to funding and all of that. So.
I developed an eating disorder in my teens and it was through sport. So there was no coaching around nutrition and I was in track and field and in my impressionable young age, I had been exposed to bulimia. I was driven to be smaller because I thought...
being smaller would make me faster. And then I ended up falling into that trap for 16 years of bulimia. managed it for 10 of those years, but I'll always suffer from it. So from a combination of factors, like my desire to be a great athlete in whatever sport that I approach,
Michelle MacDonald (03:47.271)
you know, the exposure to the differences in coaching, in funding for female sports versus male sports. And then my own inquisitive mind, coaching myself, especially through the 30s through yoga and then in bodybuilding, that journey in my 40s and 50s.
I developed, I became a coach, I became a coach in my 40s. Some women online reached out to me and asked me to coach them and I said, well, if you can get 10 women together and we do six months and you follow all of these rules, I will try it out. And this was before online coaching was a thing, this was back in 2012. I honestly did not know how it would be able to work without being in person, but it worked fine.
phenomenally well and everything changed from there on in. just kept honing my systems, my processes, developed my skills as a coach, kept learning, kept growing. And what I think now of what I'm driven to supply to the world, and you're probably the same, think, remember your story, you're very driven by your own personal experience to...
you know, solve a problem that you experienced, I also was solving that problem for myself, right? When I started in fitness in my 40s, I was 40 years old, that was considered old, like there just wasn't, now it's quite different for people getting into fitness, it seems like there's a plethora of...
role models of women in their 40s and 50s and beyond. We see like modeling now has silver, there's silver modeling agencies for models that are, you know, on their 60s and beyond. And there's this shift, probably market driven, recognizing that our market is one that has a lot of disposable income, want their invest, you know, that season of life where we want to invest in ourselves. But we're now we know it's just so significantly changed when I start
Michelle MacDonald (05:56.489)
I had to really push back. And I remember seeing women my age, I went to this fancy gym, sports club LA, we paid $150 for an hour session. I would see women my age in the middle of a personal training session and their personal trainer was looking at their phone and the women were doing what I now realize was just not effective training when we think of
progressive overload, form, moving the body through full range of motion, all of that, right? A maximal tension in a certain ref ranging, all of these things combined, they weren't getting what they deserve. And so everything about what I do is from that stance of woman,
deserve great coaching. They need and deserve access to evidence-based, science-backed information and training protocols, nutrition protocols, that the older female body can respond just as well as the older male body to the principles of hypertrophy and the principles of body composition. And we just need to go and do it and walk a straight line and not get distracted by the fad.
in that and then so that's where I am right now I've got this beautiful coaching brand coaches coaching my systems lots of women having incredible transformations all ages all starting points so that's that's me so long
Kim Vopni (07:29.816)
Yeah, yeah. That's good. You've got a lot to say and share. And so the interesting part for me is the transition from yoga to fitness. What drew you to yoga and then what in your 40s took you away from, maybe not totally away, but then what drew you to the fitness, especially now getting into the bodybuilding side of things?
Michelle MacDonald (07:51.153)
Great question. has kind of, bodybuilding, bodybuilding hasn't taken me away from yoga. would say work right now, I'm in a season of life where work takes up most of my time.
But I am able to squeeze in a yoga class a week. So I actually got into yoga in my 30s accidentally. Some girlfriends dragged me to my first yoga class. It was this hot, Bikram yoga in Vancouver. It was a kind of a dark, hot, sweaty class. I hated it. But then this other yoga studio opened in Whistler where I was living and working. And it was great owners, beautiful studio. And I loved it. So I became very, very hooked.
Kim Vopni (08:12.046)
You
Michelle MacDonald (08:32.755)
I loved it because it was so hard. Isn't that crazy? Like yoga was hard. I was sweating, my muscles were trembling, I kept falling out of poses. And it was very repeatable. So every class you would have the same pastures, you would have the same 90 minutes. And so you could really progress.
the postures, you could really focus on consistently improving your ability to maintain your muscular tension, go deeper through a range of motion, and go deeper into the posture. And it was just very meditative. There was breathing involved. I realize now that I'm further along on my own journey as a fitness professional, the basic cues that we were given were so brilliant. Like they were just,
they were so stripped down to the one or two things that you had to think about in that moment of stress, right, where it's really hard to think. You just can, you know, just sort of execute. You're not really able to learn. You know, it's a hot class. These postures are sometimes 20, 30 seconds long. Everything's trembling. And so it was really brilliant. And then I went deeper into yoga. So that was the beginner series. I advanced into the advanced series. I competed in yoga. I coached other
men and women, mostly women though, how to do handstands and deep back bends and a scorpion pose. That's where you bend your spine and put your feet on your head and all of that stuff. And it was really foundational. I read all about...
Bishnagosh and interestingly enough, so he was the, I guess the guru of the modality that I had learned, Bikram Yoga. So he learned from Bishnagosh, who actually was brought bodybuilding to India. He was an IFBB judge. He coached Monotosh Roy, who was the first Indian athlete to win, I think it was Mr. Universe in England.
Michelle MacDonald (10:37.091)
it was just incredible. And so what was significant about this approach that Bhishne Gosha had, and this is the deep, deep yoga, we're going deep here, is to be able to, through mind-muscle connection, trigger a very specific muscle. I mean, was, I can't do that. I can do good global mind-muscle connection, but he was famous, Bhishne Gosha was famous for getting to university, I think he was, wasn't that
tall and he was like 130 pounds super skinny and without lifting weights but through body weight and mind muscle connection and creating tension he was able to eat and gain all of this muscle and nutritionally it was he was heavy on protein so even this yoga that I was doing I was learning a lot already about mind muscle connection calming the mind focusing on what you were doing combining your breathing which has a lot
to do with the pelvic floor and the pressure system breathing. Also in yoga we have like the fly up lock. We talk about pulling the navel, scooping the navel upwards. So it gave me this wonderful foundation when I went into bodybuilding. I already knew that...
there was always going to be a journey of finesse. That posture was always going to be involved. And posture is far beyond, as we know, standing up straight. It's having an integrated approach to how you're stacking your skeletal system, how the muscles are supporting that, how you're breathing. All of that combined. And then, of course, then we make it complicated by adding load or...
different, you know, moving in the different planes, dynamic movements, torque, twisting, all of that. And honestly, the learning never ends. But we always start thinking, how can I finesse this? Not to make it easier, right? Because oftentimes easier is the wrong way. But how can I finesse this and really milk as much possible benefit from this, not just to be able to execute this thing that I'm doing now, but for my future health? By longevity, right?
Kim Vopni (12:51.758)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I want to... You now are, you know, what would you... What we would say midlife. I'm the same. I'll be 55 this year as well. I know. Horrible.
Michelle MacDonald (13:05.351)
That's pure epic.
Kim Vopni (13:09.718)
You train women throughout different life stages. I guess I want to ask the one question before I get to the transformation of your mom. I want to go with you. What has changed for you? So you went into bodybuilding after yoga in your 40s. Now you are 15 years, well, around-ish later. So now you're in this midlife navigating the perimenopause menopause transition. What...
changed for you during that transition in terms of bodybuilding, terms of fitness, your nutrition, your movement, if anything.
Michelle MacDonald (13:46.799)
Nothing, nothing changed. I know it's it's a buzzkill. In saying that, coach several women where we do have to do more nuanced navigation. But by and large, by and large, my clients, it's, it's more on the minimal side of things.
Kim Vopni (13:50.798)
Hahaha
Michelle MacDonald (14:08.889)
So yeah, I mean, just I'm going to be blind. really, I was on the precipice. I was waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I had a cold spell. So I called flash. So I read about that. I was in bed and I just was, I was freezing. And I, I'm like, could this, could I be one of those ornery beasts that has the opposite kind of a flash? So I read up on that and I'm like, Basser motor symptoms. It actually could be the opposite. It's more rare, but you never hear about that. So I did, I did have that a couple of times. I don't want to blow it out of proportion.
Kim Vopni (14:26.38)
I'm
Kim Vopni (14:34.552)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (14:38.793)
And so that was interesting. think, and then there's the natural aging process, right? So recovery slows down. I definitely was somebody who had insane recovery. I could train hard, never seemed to need much recovery. I would do monstrous workouts.
Kim Vopni (14:44.472)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (14:59.087)
I remember a younger girl was with his Hattie Boydall. I'm old enough to be her mother. And she also had this high capacity to train. And we would just have these crazy two hour workouts with lots of supersets and triple sets and just crazy things. I wouldn't want to do that now. I would just be dead. But that's also the aging process, right? So we have to really start to become more drilled down on what tools we're going to use to get the benefits that we want. can't just be,
Kim Vopni (15:19.203)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (15:29.061)
like slap paint on the wall and hope something sticks, we've got to actually, you know, start to get very, very specific. Luckily with age, you learn, right? And you know, I can still achieve the same outcome, but I'm going to do it this way. So reduce wear and tear on the joints or whatever. recovery has changed. Again, I put that more with the aging process. We all go, men and women go through a huge surge in the aging process in the mid-40s and then again, later on in our 60s. The one thing that
Kim Vopni (15:39.245)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (15:58.961)
I did go through that I experienced, and I love to mention it with women, is GSM, right, genitourinary symptoms of menopause. So I didn't even know when I think back, I didn't even know when it first started, which would have been probably six years ago, that that is what I was experiencing. I was just, I was finding that things were a little bit irritating. When I was with my husband,
intercourse is such a like awkward word but I mean we were having sex and but I didn't know like there's been just such a massive narrative shift in menopause so I mean I think people getting into menopause right now they would maybe think my god everyone knows about GSM but nobody was talking about GSM on social media so I sadly like missed those early years or I could have been using vaginal estrogen I use it now but so that
Kim Vopni (16:47.032)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (16:58.771)
would be one thing that I experienced and I wish every woman knew that it's not just incontinence, it's not just sexual discomfort. It can be related to so many other things. You talked about it a lot actually. That's your expertise. I'll let you talk about that.
Kim Vopni (17:12.002)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (17:15.399)
Now I really think about it a lot with my clients when they complain of back pain or when we've got constipation. I think more of that, like have you spoken with a pelvic floor specialist or I'll send them over to you or another pelvic floor specialist to try to encourage them to think that this could be something other than just simple constipation. So yeah.
Kim Vopni (17:28.206)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (17:31.97)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (17:38.092)
Right. Yeah. So the fundamentals then, like recovery was a big shift. You've talked about the GSM side. In terms of protein you mentioned, the progressive overload that you've mentioned, these are fundamentals that you...
Michelle MacDonald (17:53.489)
fundamentals.
Kim Vopni (17:54.734)
And they're fundamentals from, sure, if you want to be a bodybuilder, but they're really fundamentals for anybody. It's like, so my audience, would, I don't want to say that there's nobody here who would ever want to be, or who is maybe currently striving to be a bodybuilder, but there are so many women who have always either shied away from lifting weights, they have never eaten adequate protein, they're afraid of getting bulky or too big. I bring the lens of this age-related muscle.
sarcopenia is also influencing the pelvic floor. So we need to get that in check first and then we load, progressively overload the pelvic floor, but the rest of the body as well. So what are your, and you said it doesn't really necessarily matter whether you're midlife beyond or not, and we're gonna get to your mom, but what are the principles from why protein, what does progressive overload mean, and how...
How would you, if somebody was just starting out even, let's say they've worked with a trainer, they're now gonna work out how often should they be doing their strength training and like what would that strength training workout look like? That's always a lot of questions.
Michelle MacDonald (19:03.725)
All right, if I get off track, just you just.
rail me in. It has been a big day. was working at 5 a.m. So number one protein, there's just, we have tons of evidence around that at this point in time. I had Dr. Stuart Phillips and then Lauren Clemso-Simpley on my podcast. They talk a lot about protein in their research. They're both researchers. But we know that we need a lot more protein for muscular hypertrophy than what we were exposed to through those RDAs, which I believe I've
Kim Vopni (19:19.8)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (19:36.937)
I've now changed. So making sure that you're getting quality protein, if you want to do a vegetarian non-animal protein source, making sure that you're getting that combination of amino acids in throughout the day. think vegan and vegetarian protein patterns have come a long way to make sure that how they package those amino acid profiles are hitting all the right chords for humans. So making sure you're eating
Kim Vopni (20:05.166)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (20:07.098)
protein and that can just be as simple as
without counting macros and going down that road, just making sure that there's protein on the plate when you're going to eat something. I think that one shift can have really powerful repercussions. And you'll get your protein in. And then if you mix that with other healthy choices, like a variety of colorful vegetables and some whole grains, all of those have amino acids in them as well. Almost all of them have amino acids in them as well. And some of them have significant contributions of amino acids like wheat.
protein in it, believe it or not, and broccoli has a fair bit of protein in it. And you combine all of that and you're not eating slabs of meat if you eat meat. You're having actually like a small amount of meat, almost. You know, and I love Asian food and when I go and have like a bowl of like stir-fry, the amount of protein that's in there plus the vegetables, that sort of idea is really what you need to do. And then you would do that with all of your meals. So that's an easy fix.
Kim Vopni (20:45.582)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (21:06.146)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (21:10.985)
I personally eat higher
protein than I need to because that is what I am drawn to. It's healthy. I've been eating like that for a long time. I'm 120 pounds and I eat 150. I've tried to bring myself down to like 120 or even 100. I don't like it. I feel like I'm not eating any meat and so that's a personal preference and there's no negative. There's nothing negative about eating that much protein. I just want to share that with the audience. Most of my clients
Kim Vopni (21:21.923)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (21:37.026)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (21:42.434)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (21:45.545)
prefer to eat more than what is recommended as this is how much you need to eat for health. Most of my clients, I don't know if it's because they're lifting weights and people in the weightlifting space talk about protein, maybe it's like, you know, if it's nature versus nurture. But yeah, that's kind of where my clients are. So I think that's interesting to share with the audience.
Kim Vopni (22:09.1)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (22:15.597)
what people that are really, really trying to extract as much performance and benefit from their nutrition and training, what they are actually doing. And then we can talk about the minimums, like what you would need to do minimally to prevent sarcopenia. And then I'd layer on.
and this is where I come from, we can ask for more from ourselves. Do we just wanna prevent sarcopenia or do we wanna actually age with vitality and strength and be able to still jump off of a step and balance and be able to turn and twist, fall down and just roll and get back up again? Can we ask for more? Can we change our internal narrative and ask for more? I saw you nod your head, so I'm like, you got it, right?
Kim Vopni (23:00.194)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (23:05.186)
I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (23:09.989)
So that would be, I hope that covers the protein.
not hard to get it in. does a little requires a little bit of a shift and maybe a little bit of light education, which is so easy with AI these days. You know, what are the top 10 vegetables higher in protein? What are the top 10 grains higher in protein? Like you could make it really easy and then and then thread that into your normal breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Training progressive overload. It's so simple. It's not complicated.
Kim Vopni (23:38.734)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (23:44.177)
It's really making sure that you are, I'm gonna say improving your outputs over time.
So in general, it's improving your outputs over time. So with beginners, we always want to focus on form, right? So we want to make sure we're teaching good foundations, good form. I love equipment in the gym simply because you're locked in, there's not a lot of skill involved. And we can just focus on mind-muscle connection, breathing, range of motion, improving your range of motion. When my mom started, she didn't have the range of motion she now has. So here she is.
10 years older, but her range of motion, her balance, her nimbleness, her agility have improved over time. So we started on machines, we worked on those basics. And then, you know, once you have that range of motion down, if balance is involved, your balance is evolved, and your form is solid, you know how to stand, create muscular tension, execute the exercise with good forms throughout, which usually involves
kind of kipping or cheating or kind of making the exercise easier, keeping it strict. Then we start adding load.
Kim Vopni (24:54.968)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (25:01.639)
And that's the primary driver that we're looking at. We're always adding load if we can. I would never, ever want to tell somebody you can't progress load until you're perfect. So I really push back against that. And that comes from yoga. We would have people that would not progress because they couldn't be perfect with their balance. And in fact, I just wrote to someone today.
Kim Vopni (25:14.125)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (25:25.799)
I quite remember where that message went out, but I said, it's nuanced, right? Like, yes, you wanna maintain good form, but when you're pushing intensity up, some of those reps are gonna start to see form breakdown. Now, we recognize that and we work to correct that, but generally, we try not to regress it unless we have to. We wanna stay where it's uncomfortable and really improve our resilience to grind under
under pressure that good form.
to keep yourself in place, to not let your elbows shoot out or your shoulders shoot out or forget your breathing. And of course it's nuanced, right? Sometimes you're gonna overreach and you will have to regress the weight, practice again and scale back up, but don't limit yourself to kind of standing in place waiting for perfection to happen. It's really hard, if not impossible, to do anything in life like that, whether you're building a business or trying to improve your pelvic floor coordination, you're gonna have to push yourself
Kim Vopni (26:25.166)
Hehe.
Michelle MacDonald (26:29.833)
where it's a little bit messy, but no best, you know, just a little bit messy, but not too much. You don't want to be careless. So in general, what I try to do as a coach is get clients, I encourage people listening to this, take videos of yourself, lots of great execution online now again, how to do something correctly. And then you can mix between adding load, particularly if you're in machine work, like leg extensions or like squats or anything like that.
Kim Vopni (26:56.984)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (26:59.753)
And if you're using free weight and balance or integrating all those kinetic chains in a way that's very stable and moving well, if that's challenging, you can always stick with the weight, but add more reps. And you can add more reps.
You know, for example, if you're doing a goblet squat and you're doing 20 pounds for 15 reps, well, you can progress to 20 to 25 reps and then that would be enough to go and go back to sets of 15 with five pounds heavier weight, right? So you kind of like scale up like a wave and then you come back down and scale up in a wave and come back down. And that I think is a very safe way to get your nervous system primed, you know,
to that hardness of what you're trying to do. You're greasing the groove, which is what we like to say with somebody, like you're repeating the movement done the right way over and over again. Your body's gaining confidence. You're working on your breath, mind muscle connection, and then you add that load and start back again. So I think that's really great. There's other ways to make things harder, but I would say if your audience is more beginner, we really want to focus on getting the right kind of stress to build muscle.
I would focus on once form is tucked away, progressing weight, which is tension, and progressing reps, which is going to be your volume.
Kim Vopni (28:22.158)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (28:26.574)
Do you think in the menopause space now there's very much a lot of people saying you need to lift heavy, you need to lift heavy and people have defined what heavy is, you know, some people have said four reps or five reps and...
like a weight that you can lift five times and then you need to do five sets of that and for somebody just beginning I would never ever start them there but but there's also the conversation of does it need to be heavyweight or could it be more reps and you're kind of talking about there's the two ways there's there's other ways as well but those are two main ways you can influence load do you believe we have to lift a weight
that we can only do five times? Or do you think we can get success and build muscle in a smaller weight but a higher rep zone?
Michelle MacDonald (29:17.201)
So I'm have a two part answer for you as somebody in the trenches. And again, I'm gonna state my bias. I am a strength and conditioning coach. Strength is strength. But for the audience, I'm gonna say, listen, let's make this easy. It's gotta be hard. So whether it's hard and you're doing 100 reps or hard at five reps, it has to be hard and it has to get progressively harder.
Kim Vopni (29:20.897)
You
Kim Vopni (29:28.12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (29:43.097)
So I would switch heavy for hard if we want to have a cart launch statement that's in line with what the research says. And the research says, you you can build, you will be stimulated, you will be stimulated to build muscle in a variety of rep ranges as long as your training, as long as the weight you're using approximates failure. So you're within a couple of reps of failure.
Kim Vopni (29:58.04)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (30:11.607)
Right.
Michelle MacDonald (30:13.445)
Now, as a CSCS.
I somebody has been coaching women for since 2012, including powerlifters as well as bodybuilders and pride myself that my clients are blown away. Most of them will say I've learned more from you in the first three months than I have with this in-person trainer over the last 15 years. Dodie Ekovitz is one of those gals. So I know that what I actually what I actually am saying to my clients once we've got that form tucked away, not waiting for perfection, but knowing when we can
Kim Vopni (30:32.395)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (30:46.897)
push, I'm often saying we've got to go heavier. We've got to go heavier. So I don't want to lie to people by, you know, in trying to protect myself and staying super evidence based and sticking exactly with the jargon that we're now supposed to say, I'm going to be raw and real with you. Right. Yes, it's true that you can progress. You can stimulate muscle growth in a variety of rep ranges. But I honestly do encourage my woman and where I see big benefits fast is getting them really
Kim Vopni (30:58.369)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (31:16.777)
strong. Now is that sets of five? No I don't often have gals going to do sets of five. I have one girl for example she's in her in her late 40s, cancer survivor, might could go on and on she's fabulous I love her. She now might be facing hip surgery but she's an incredible bench there's one thing that she can do really well that we've we've developed together is her bench press and and she's been she's been training with me for a while and she's had some health things to do.
with as I mentioned, beyond what I've said actually. And just recently I said, know, I turned my eye of zord on her and I said, listen, we've got to start drilling down on strength again. She presses, I think her best lift is like 160 for a set of two. Now she is 160, 170 pounds, she's tall, 5'10 or 5'11. But I said, we've got to work on your strength. And so I said, would this be a great goal for you? Would this be exciting for you?
Kim Vopni (31:47.33)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (32:03.532)
Well.
Kim Vopni (32:07.969)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (32:16.562)
work up to a single. Would that be exciting? Because I think we can get you to 200 pounds for a single at this point in time. And she said, yes, I'd love that. And so we're going to take about seven to eight months to progress her towards a single. So she did 130 pounds for 14 reps, RP8. So she had a couple reps left in the tank. But there again, I'm going into strength and a systematized approach, right? CSCS still means something. A systematized approach to get her there
Kim Vopni (32:44.695)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (32:46.492)
safely with pulling the levers of lift variables, strengthening her where she has weakness or sticking points, using variations like tempo and paused bench press, inclined bench press. It's a whole series. And then we built her towards that future single, where I will go through doubles and triples and sets of five and all of that.
Kim Vopni (32:58.391)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (33:11.802)
build up towards strength. But I agree with you out of the starter gates, I generally don't throw somebody into sets of five. It's not necessary and harmful with anything. A lot of people, unless you're doing machine work, and just...
Kim Vopni (33:18.433)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Michelle MacDonald (33:27.59)
learn to train very hard, it is a skill, and then focus on building strength in the rep range that you really enjoy. And Stuart talks about this, Dr. Stuart Phillips, you've got to like what you do. So if you like to be doing sets of 15 and 20, if that's your jam, just make sure you're progressing. Like I said, you got load, you got volume, right? Increase the work capacity.
Kim Vopni (33:44.546)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (33:57.594)
sets of eight do that and if you really love doing sets of five or triples then then work with that.
So I hope that gives people the truth behind the scenes of what actually happens. Make the workouts hard and understand that that is a skill that you'll need to develop. What we think of as hard when we're beginning, we far surpass that, our ability to tolerate the discomfort of contracting your muscle fibers in the presence of hydrogen ions, right? We call that lactic acid. You develop a skill for that. And the more you can train in that zone,
Kim Vopni (34:08.802)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (34:13.153)
Yeah
Kim Vopni (34:30.219)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (34:37.224)
the more stimulation you have. You add more load to that kind of a training, the more stimulation that you'll have for your satellite cells. Layer on that.
strategic nutrition and you'll have more muscular growth regardless of your age. Drill down on those things and if you're a newbie and you never want to be a bodybuilder, well heck you don't have to but borrow from that sport because there's no other sport that is that invested and milking as much output from nutrition and training as a bodybuilder. So take what you want from that space because they are the absolute experts in manipulating mass and then apply those principles
Kim Vopni (35:16.417)
thousand percent.
Michelle MacDonald (35:18.024)
to what you want to achieve.
Kim Vopni (35:20.149)
Yeah. Okay, I'm switching over now to your mama. So for those that aren't familiar, Michelle's mom is known on Instagram as Train With Joan. Tell me the story of...
how you helped your mom have this incredible transformation. I'd like to know, I'd like for you to share the age, so the reason why you intervened and how old she was at the time and also, and I'll ask some other questions after there, but tell me your mom's story.
Michelle MacDonald (35:51.558)
I can remember it like it was yesterday. My husband and were moving to Mexico. I used to see Joan several times throughout the year.
Kim Vopni (35:54.465)
You
Michelle MacDonald (36:04.854)
and she and my dad, he's passed away now, but she and my dad would support my husband and I. We would be passing through, would be staying with them and they would support us by getting us our steaks and our asparagus. We were usually like about to step on stage when we would pass through. So she had a lot of exposure to what we were doing. She would hear us talking about clients, both my husband coaches as well. So we would be talking about clients and protocols. And so she was very much exposed to that space.
Kim Vopni (36:19.223)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (36:34.728)
I never pushed her at all. When I grew up, I saw my mom yo-yo dieting. would successfully lose 60 pounds or whatever and then she would regain it again. And I'm also very aware it's uniquely challenging to give family advice.
Kim Vopni (36:57.547)
Yes.
Michelle MacDonald (36:58.342)
It's uniquely challenging, you know, if somebody doesn't ask then don't give them advice. Just enjoy what it is that you're doing and maybe it'll rub off.
Kim Vopni (37:02.935)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (37:07.29)
didn't and my mom, you know, my mom was in her late 60s. She was starting, she was depressed for a long time. She would also leave between depression and anger and she might've benefited, she might've benefited from some, some MHT. Although again, if we go back to those years, it really wasn't talked about like it is today. And the struggles with her marriage, they'd grown apart and they didn't share the same hobbies. His health was going
her health was starting to go. She gained so much weight. And when I was at my parents place, my mother was walking up the stairs and she was huffing and puffing.
you know, I'm in a season of life. I am so busy. It is challenging for me to stay present. I was packing everything. I was in the middle of launching a new cohort. I would do these cohorts twice a year. They would sell out. I would take 20 women on this wonderful journey. So I'd launched a new one. We had just started the kind of the pre launch where they were getting introduced to macros and nutrition and were getting to know each other in the community space that I have. And so I was very distracted, but mom was coming up this
steps and puffing and puffing. sat down at the dinner table and it just hit me. She looks terrible. Her skin was
that kind of like sweaty pasty white with like a lot of broken blood vessels in spots. Your eyes were just, you could barely see them. She was so swollen. She had no neck anymore. She was obese. She was 200 pounds, five foot three. Could barely get it up the stairs. And then she dropped the bomb. I love signs. I love pharmacological interventions when they're appropriate. But I'm also very much about
Michelle MacDonald (39:03.509)
being preventative and pulling lifestyle levers. And we want to only use...
those interventions when we have to. And then we want to do as much as we can to be self-sufficient, right? The human body is just fabulous in its ability to heal itself and adapt. And mom said, I'm on my, she's like, my doctor wants to increase my blood pressure medication. I don't want to do it. I had no idea she was on blood pressure medication. So I said, what? How long have you been on blood pressure medication? How much are you taking? What are you taking? And so she shared that with me.
Kim Vopni (39:10.391)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (39:13.954)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (39:38.788)
And it just sat with me and I'm like, God, Michelle.
You got to figure this out. was a real, I'm going to cry right now. Cause it was a real moment in my own coaching journey where I had to come to that realization that I was uniquely skilled to intervene and help. had to get to a stage through trial and error, working with all of these women to realize I can, I can do this. I can do this because then I had to have that come to Jesus speech with my mom. And I used every lever I could. talked about God and
Kim Vopni (39:45.357)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (40:08.865)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (40:12.424)
I tried to scare her. We laugh about her now because was just in Canada and I was literally on my hands and knees hosing her down and washing her and cleaning her and everything. She was quite sick and I had to really take care of her. But I said to her, listen, you are going to end up in a nursing home in a short period of time. You are on the highway to a nursing home and I am not going to change your diapers because you can do stuff right now that can radically change the course that you are on.
and I will be there for all of that.
Kim Vopni (40:45.025)
Hallelujah, good for you.
Michelle MacDonald (40:46.372)
Hallelujah. Amazingly enough, and of course there's like the doubt and the resentment and the fear and the excitement and all those emotions flashing through her face. And the next morning she was in the car ready to go. And honestly, she has been such a wonderfully stubborn, persistent, gritty woman. I think that's her superpower and she says it on her interviews. She's stubborn. For some reason she got it into her head that she had to prove it to me and my husband.
Kim Vopni (40:52.685)
sure.
Kim Vopni (40:59.33)
You
Kim Vopni (41:10.423)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (41:16.296)
that she wouldn't quit. I of course never wanted her to quit and I didn't think she was going to quit otherwise I wouldn't have taken her into the group. I was really like come hell or high water I know I can get this gal over the finish line and she did much much much more than that. So and it was tough the first you know there was the tech piece 100 % online so and she had to rapidly she had to we had to get her smartphone we had to download this my macros app
Kim Vopni (41:40.097)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (41:44.705)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (41:46.216)
She kept forgetting her password as people of her generation, the baby boomer generation, right? They didn't grow up with email and computers. So there was some unique challenges there, lots of tears, of, you know, lots of just challenges for her to overcome. I brought her down to Mexico for two weeks. I said, Jay, I've to bring mom down. I feel like if I don't have more oversight in this tender beginning piece with the tech aspect, like she won't be able to send me emails or
Kim Vopni (41:49.581)
You
Yes.
Michelle MacDonald (42:16.136)
or even read the work at the work out back then were on PDF. So she'd have the PDF, she'd it out. Again, as her generation will do, she printed it out. She dots all the I's, crosses all the T's, very diligent. I think that's part of the Baby Boomer generation. And she just had phenomenal results. And honestly, and again, guys, please, if you're listening to this, I know the space around the midlife is so wrought with
Kim Vopni (42:20.299)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (42:33.943)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (42:46.356)
with stories and competing. It seems like at the science and expert level competing narratives. the changes that I saw with my mother, and she was my oldest client at the time. Since then I've had heaps of 70 and 60 and lot 50 year olds and women going through menopause and people well into it. And...
Kim Vopni (43:02.188)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (43:10.47)
the responsiveness of the body, of the female body at any age to the right protocols, the right levers being pulled. And it's not complicated. I don't want to say the right protocols, like I have the inside scoop on the right things. It's basic bodybuilding stuff. Anyone can learn about it.
The female body reacts incredibly well. So, so moment the first month, she de puffed her waist drop. think it was two and a half inches that first four weeks. Her doctor had to reduce her blood pressure medication almost immediately to that first month. Why? Because she was getting dizzy because now it was overcompensating and her blood pressure was too low. She still had to take it. didn't, she didn't wean off it till later on.
Kim Vopni (43:53.483)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (44:01.02)
that year, think month eight or something. phenomenal results. a crazy amount of weight. So we like, I pride myself in saying a pound, depending on your size, but in general, a pound a week is very normal, very healthy, very sustainable. She must have dropped like eight pounds in the first month. It just kind of fell off. That inflammation, a lot of it was water weight. was just that inflammation just dropped off in the water.
dropped off. So she had amazing results in the first six months. 40 pounds came off over two feet and inches throughout her body. And then her photos, you know, after that six months, they became her future before photos, right? Because she just kept going. She had no choice. She was living with us a lot of the year. She was in her lifestyle, but she just continued. She's she's
She has biceps and her delts pop and her lats pop and even with surgeries and all the health things she's had to go through, she's got knee surgery coming up right after her 80th birthday in April 2nd or April 1st, we've got that scheduled. But I know she's going to sail through it and the surgeon is going to say, wow, you healed like a 20-year-old. And that's what Great Lifestyle will do for you.
Kim Vopni (45:19.149)
Yeah, it's remarkable. Yeah, I share her photos. I share her posts so often in my community because I do have a lot of, I have people through the various life stages, but the vast majority are in sort of the 55 to 75, 80 age range. And so many people.
have the belief that it's too late, I'm too far gone, I can't do this. And I'm of the belief of what you were saying is instead of just, know, why are we not trying to push for more? Why are we not trying to age powerfully? And with the motivator, I use the same motivator all the time, is we need to train for life so that we can, we don't want to be training for the nursing home. We need to be training for staying out of the nursing home. So I'm just absolutely in awe of, I love that you stepped in, helped your
but also that she committed and she's continued to go. My question now is, said she's coming up to knee surgery. That's another thing that, well, I can't get down on the floor or I have bad knees or there's all these excuses that people are, they're wanting to use those sometimes as an excuse why, this just won't work for me. But there's so many ways to, I mean, I'm talking about my program, but there's many ways to be successful in whatever it is you're doing.
and we can modify so many things. So can you tell me a little bit about what you talked about the blood pressure, what were some of the other along the way, some of the other struggles that your mom faced and like did she ever look at those as like well I can't do this now anymore because I have X.
Michelle MacDonald (47:00.17)
Well, I'm going to start by saying mom didn't make those excuses for a long, long, time. I can remember, because I came from the yoga world, and I would encourage her, you know, her ankles used to swell up terribly. She had this kind of lazy, you know what a lazy boy is?
Kim Vopni (47:06.834)
Mmm. Yep.
Kim Vopni (47:12.749)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Michelle MacDonald (47:16.27)
one those chairs that you kick back and she would read, she loved to read like historical novels, romance novels, and she'd kick back and read those and by three, four o'clock in the afternoon she also has kidney disease, and it's in my family, her side of the family, and her ankles would just be, you know, just so swollen and her feet, she couldn't wear her shoes, was uncomfortable and terrible. And I would say, come on down, I would try to get her into these yoga poses that were good for improving blood flow and
the lymphatic system and she would say I can't do that my knees are too bad I you know I can't get off the floor again and she was attached to that.
Kim Vopni (47:47.585)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (47:55.386)
Right? So, she very much was in that space of, can't change, I can't do that. So I want to say that is very normal, but it's literally a switch that you've got to flip internally and decide that you have to allow more for yourself. You have to allow yourself to reach for more, to ask for more. And only you can do that. No one can save yourself but you. So that's a very important journey to make. And it's just literally a decision.
Kim Vopni (48:09.271)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (48:25.542)
Next, once you've been able to flip that switch, then it comes down to that work of doing all of the things and starting small. I'm not somebody who would say start with walking unless really you were that limited, that that was all you could do. again, even my mom when I went in to see her at the hospital, I felt like I was rescuing her at the time. She just was in such poor health literally overnight. And I saw her in the
Kim Vopni (48:41.239)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (48:55.496)
hospital bed she hadn't had a shower he took her for a shower washed her up and I could tell how it was what was shocking to me Kim was how weak she had become and I said listen let's get some you've got a hydrate
Kim Vopni (49:08.13)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (49:09.242)
You know, again, from the bodybuilding world, we believe a lot more in hydration versus sip a couple of cups of water that you might experience in a hospital setting. Said, you got to get your water in. Can you walk? Yes, I can walk. Okay, I'm going to walk with you. Let's walk. So we would just walk around and get that blood flow going, get the lymphatic system going. And then I said, you know, I would walk with her every hour. So I said, all right, now do you think that you can do some body weight squats? And she said, I think I can. said, all right, let's go over, put your hands
Kim Vopni (49:15.511)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (49:39.266)
on this, you know, they would have the beds along the hallways, I'd grab this bed, let's just go down slowly. I coach her on her breathing, we talk about the blueberry, like hold the blueberry, right? so inhale and go down, then exhale, come up, and she was great, I kept my eyes on her, does she look faint, does she look, no, she looks good, and so we ended up doing a, you know, like 15 minutes of just body weight stuff, and I'm saying that because is walking all you can do?
Kim Vopni (49:41.43)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (49:48.998)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (50:09.196)
Could you do more in a supportive way? Right? So we want to decrease risk, but we want to make sure that we're trying to push ourselves to that place where there might be some positive adaptations, whatever that means, body weight, or if you can add weight and load. And then when it comes to injury, and I'd love to touch on that super quick, Kim, making sure to, as we get older, we have to address injury. So when I say hard and I say that there's that discomfort of
Kim Vopni (50:11.691)
Yes. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (50:39.026)
of contracting your muscles in the presence of lactate, you have to be smart about pain, especially with shoulder joints, hip joints, knee joints, and making sure that you're addressing that. When we get older, if we don't address that, we increase the risk of unnecessary wear and to the joints or ligaments and tendons. So we want to be very smart about that. And that's where an expert can come in, diagnosing how you're
Kim Vopni (50:45.377)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (50:52.642)
Right.
Kim Vopni (51:04.769)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (51:09.156)
scapula is gliding on the rib cage, right? Or whether or not your glute med is firing when you're, you know, in the sagittal plane and doing a split squat or something like that. So I mentioned that as well. I hope I didn't go off on a crazy tangent. I ask you a question? Okay.
Kim Vopni (51:11.149)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (51:17.133)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (51:22.497)
Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Tangents, I love tangents, to be honest. just a couple more things, just as we wrap up. When you're talking about your mom in the hospital, this was a recent illness your mom had. is what you're talking about what you're referencing correct? Yeah. And so I look at this also as your mom was also training for this. Not that she expected this to happen, not that she knew that this, but.
Michelle MacDonald (51:41.157)
Yes.
Kim Vopni (51:50.963)
life things happen and imagine had this happened had she not been doing what she had been doing with you over the last 10, 15 years and she had built this muscle mass up, she had built this resilience, she had lower inflammation, she was in a better position to withstand this health challenge she faced. Yeah, yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (52:10.094)
Exactly. Bingo. I said that several times. If mom hadn't had the strength, the constitution, right? Because also training and when you train hard, you increase your body's ability to handle stress because training is a stress, right? She, don't know what the outcome would have been.
Kim Vopni (52:25.099)
Yes. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (52:31.082)
I feel like I couldn't have arrived a day sooner. I'm not going to go into details, but it was horrifying to see what was happening to my mom in such a short period of time.
Kim Vopni (52:35.213)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (52:40.107)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (52:41.726)
And also, what was interesting to me was to see the gap in education. We talk about that. We're very eloquent now about the gap in education in the health care system around menopause. I think we know that, right? Doctors who get a day of an hour of training or something like that.
Kim Vopni (52:55.309)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (53:00.534)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (53:01.926)
I am much more alarmed, especially with the size of the baby boomer population heading into the reality of the baby boomer generation and the likelihood of them needing care, right? Needing hospital care or care in a residency. So there is a huge gap in education around geriatric.
Luckily, we were talking with, we had just given a speech at the.
the Conomagor convention, which is a convention for geriatric medicine in Mexico and for Latin America. So we spoke at that and met some wonderful people in August. And so I was on the phone with them while I was in the hospital and I was asking them, what about this? What about that? What about this? And they were giving me, they're like, well, you know, for seniors, you know, you got to be more careful with this stuff because they don't present the same way or they don't react to this intervention the same way. And so
Kim Vopni (53:44.567)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (53:53.41)
Hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (54:08.392)
So, you know.
I was able to really be there for her and take care of her and make sure she did not take any more laxatives and make sure that we modified her nutrition. She did not eat the food that she was being presented with. And I said, no, you cannot do that. You are in a very inflamed state. We've got to the inflammation down. And then I got her out and I just continued with that protocol and she was absolutely fine within a matter of days. But I did see a big gap with that. And even when I presented
Kim Vopni (54:16.354)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (54:23.873)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (54:36.641)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (54:41.768)
research, right? Gold standard research, know, thousands of people study. This is what they observed. We have to be careful with this. They really weren't interested in that. So I thought that was very alarming as well, not being open to the research. Gold standard RCT, like you want to know about this stuff because if you're dispensing protocols, if you're dispensing pharmaceuticals, you have to understand that that population will present differently. Just like we would
Kim Vopni (55:11.361)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (55:11.758)
say and children right you don't give children the same protocols that you would give to an adult so that's very alarming and I hope that we see a shift in that I personally want to pursue that with
Kim Vopni (55:14.657)
Right.
Michelle MacDonald (55:25.102)
with the Train with Joan brand and see if we can make it cool to be a baby boomer and make sure that we're getting the care that we need to get. Not just to be, as you said, training for the nursing home, but so that we can get in, get out and continue on with life and be independent.
Kim Vopni (55:35.809)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (55:41.867)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the final question that everybody asks, or I know that everybody thinks about, they haven't necessarily asked me, but of course, people knowing how prevalent pelvic floor challenges are and knowing that they are typically the...
the more advanced age, all the things that happen with aging, and then, you know, not that heavy lifting is going to create pelvic floor challenges for people, but a lot of people are afraid of heavy lifting because they've been told you shouldn't do it because you have pelvic floor dysfunction. So can you provide some insight? Did your mom talk about this? I'm going to make an assumption that at the beginning maybe it didn't come up, but then as you developed more knowledge, maybe you said you have your mom now doing the blueberry, picking up the blueberry
and activating your pelvic floor, when did that come in? Were there ever conversations around pelvic health coming up for your mom along the way?
Michelle MacDonald (56:39.982)
No. No, there weren't.
really until rather recently, like within the last year, year and a half. She's actually, she's actually quite resilient. My little brother, she's had three kids, my little brother was, I think he was 10 pounds or something crazy like that. I don't, I mean, I just know when I say 10 pounds or 11 pounds, like women that have given birth are just horrified. So I imagine that's a very big weight for a baby. And of course, when she had gave
Kim Vopni (56:50.082)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (57:00.183)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (57:07.35)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (57:14.97)
birth. I mean you were just you gave birth and then you're out right there's no talk about your diastasis recti and and how to retrain your movement patterns and how to make sure that your your pelvic floor was healthy or that your pelvis was shifting into the right position and all of that so none of that is just go and be merry.
Kim Vopni (57:20.835)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (57:36.3)
And my mother actually has surprisingly little incidences with pelvic floor issues. However, I do believe, because that's my jam, that she could have better outcomes. So it is something that we work on. think almost every day I'll catch her in the middle of something. She's terrible posture. And I'll say, mom, how's your blueberry? And literally she'll just show like, whoop! She's like, it's okay. I'm like, is it on the floor?
Kim Vopni (57:54.062)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (58:01.774)
Yeah
Michelle MacDonald (58:05.734)
Are we making pie with that blueberry? So I do try to keep it light and fun. I ask a lot of her, it's a lot. And so it's one thing that we try to keep a sense of humour, but we're working on it. I would actually love for her to connect with you. I think that could be very interesting. I had a wonderful interview with another gal who talked about...
Kim Vopni (58:24.942)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (58:33.878)
a the weighted the weighted as i call it like a a pessary it's the the weighted weights yeah and so that sounded really interesting to me again i have such a plethora of type a clients and they want to get in get out so i'm like this could be a great way and they love goals and they love to get tested so i thought this could be a great way for them to like just get on and just see how you are
Kim Vopni (58:39.374)
Kegel weights? Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (58:59.365)
like for a short period of time and then maybe you might find out, ooh, you know what I actually need to put some more concerted effort into it. So I kind of like the idea of that. haven't really researched it, Kim, and what if that can be.
Kim Vopni (59:07.416)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (59:11.382)
I sort of look at it like the, it's like I wouldn't start somebody with five sets of, you with a heavy, heavy weight. It's something you would progress to. And I view Kegelweights the same way. If you don't know the current status of your pelvic floor.
you wouldn't start, like nobody should start with a weight in my opinion. I think, you know, getting the connection, getting the fundamentals first and then that becomes the progressive. That's the load that we can add once we make sure that we have the form in place, right? So I wouldn't start somebody there, but it is absolutely a tool that can be beneficial. And just like we use dumbbells for the rest of our body, that that's a dumbbell for the pelvic floor, but just not starting there. That's my, my two cents on that. Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (59:30.169)
Right.
Michelle MacDonald (59:49.795)
Yeah. It's interesting. do find, again, with with breath work, with making sure that we're coordinating the pelvic floor, the core muscles, the multifid... my God, I always get that. Yes, that, the little muscles that in between the... Yes. And making sure with the breath that we're coordinating that properly.
Kim Vopni (01:00:02.338)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Maltivitous. Yep. The mouthful.
Kim Vopni (01:00:17.731)
Yeah.
Michelle MacDonald (01:00:18.341)
It's challenging because it requires presence.
Kim Vopni (01:00:24.77)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (01:00:25.601)
So I think that is probably, and that's why I'm interested with the appropriate receptive aspect of those little leads is because it's something that you can feel, you can tell if you're doing it or not. It's that box of a test, like can you do this thing for this period of time? Getting people to slow down and really be conscious and aware and then to be able to maintain that awareness, you know, or almost so that it becomes unconscious, that is very challenging.
Kim Vopni (01:00:31.692)
Yes. Yes.
Kim Vopni (01:00:42.925)
Yes.
Michelle MacDonald (01:00:55.545)
Especially with middle age when you've got such a to-do list and it's, you know, and then there's one more thing that I want you to do. Just one more thing, right?
Kim Vopni (01:00:56.076)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kim Vopni (01:01:07.106)
Totally. Yeah. Our big long to do list. Okay. Your puppy needs you. I, we have gone well over and I, you've been very generous with your time and your knowledge and your information. I want to, I just, I admire and applaud what you did with your mom. love her transformation, her story. I would love to have her on the podcast as well. And yeah, would love to have to have her. know I, again, I share her stuff all the time with my community. She's such a, an inspiration as are you, and now they get to hear from you as well. So where can people find you and learn more about what you
Michelle MacDonald (01:01:25.283)
Let's do it.
Kim Vopni (01:01:37.06)
do and potentially work with you.
Michelle MacDonald (01:01:38.829)
Love it. You can find us at thewonderwoman.com, an incredible team of coaches, including Nancy. So somebody from your space really wants somebody who's experienced that progression. That would be your girl, Nancy Tang. But yeah, go find us over there. You find Joan at Train with Joan and myself at Michelle MacDonald Official. I'm mostly doing the podcasts in that space. And then of course I create the systems and processes for the coaching team.
Kim Vopni (01:01:45.614)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (01:02:04.632)
Mm-hmm.
Michelle MacDonald (01:02:08.793)
Thank you so much. and please follow us at Stronger By Design if you have people that love podcasts. I do my best to bring in the top experts around how to optimize your strength, your health, be fit forever. So you can find us there. Stronger By Design.
Kim Vopni (01:02:08.864)
Amazing.
Kim Vopni (01:02:23.404)
Yes, I love it. I'll have all the links down below. Thank you so much for your time, for your expertise, and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you.
Michelle MacDonald (01:02:32.665)
Thank you.
