6-pack abs.
To some, you’re considered healthy if you have them.
According to our guest, that's the common misconception of being fit and healthy.Amanda Quinn is the co-founder of FIT CHICKS, the largest women's only fitness company in Canada.
From the award-winning bootcamp, online transformation challenges, weekend health retreats, FIT CHICKS has helped over 7,500 Canadian women get fit and fierce.
During this interview, you'll discover...
The importance of moving your body and using it as a tool
The significance of proper form and technique
The risk of sitting in your desk in front of the computer and working long hours
To learn more about Amanda and FIT CHICKS, visit their website here.
For their Facebook, click here.
To checkout their Instagram, go here.
Michael Palmer: 01:24 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a terrific one. Our guest is the cofounder of Fit Chicks stoll largest women's only fitness company in Canada. Since its launch in 2008 fit chicks has helped over 7,500 Canadian women get fit and fierce. Amanda Quinn, welcome to the show.
Amanda Quinn: 01:50 Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
MP: 01:53 And well, it's great to have you and I'm excited to hear your story and as well do whatever we can to help our listener bring more fit and fierce into their life.
AQ: 02:05 You can never have enough bitten fierce in your life, I think.
MP: 02:08 I think so. I think it's a great, I think it's a great idea. So before we get into that, tell us a little bit about your career journey before fit chicks before fintechs.
AQ: 02:17 Oh, interesting. And so basically before we started, so I started this company with Laura Jackson who is my best friend and since grade nine as well as my business partner. And before we started wheat bowls, kind of went the route of like what we felt we should do, you know, went to school and graduated from school and I went and got like corporate sort of jobs. I was working actually in the arts and entertainment industries. So I was working for house of Blues Concerts Canada. I was the manager of sponsorship and advertising right out of school, which was interesting because I was so young and inexperienced, but they trusted me. And so I was um, I was working in that role for a few years and then I left there to go and work at the Toronto International Film Festival in the same position. So as manager of sponsorship and advertising.
AQ: 03:04 And they were both amazing jobs and I loved them so much. And I love arts and entertainment and, but I also loved health and wellness and you know, during that process of, you know, having a job that was fulfilling but just like it didn't like me up in the same way I started getting certified and started going and just educating myself with no intention of ever actually even teaching. I just wanted to learn and grow as a person. And then eventually by practicing with my family and friends and my house, I realized that I actually loved the idea of teaching and inspiring other people to get healthy and to get fit. So that's sort of how we kind of, that's sort of how we came about deciding that we were going to start our job like our company in September of 2008 and Lauren, I mean Laura was working for Hilton hotels is the marketing manager. So we both had really great jobs with prepositions and upgrade opportunity for growth. But yeah, we just, I don't know. Everyone thought we were crazy to be honest, Michael, like with when we said we were quitting our full-time jobs to go teach fitness, they thought, oh my gosh, you're going to go run around in parks instead of take a director position. That'll probably come up shortly. And we're like, yeah, that's what we're doing.
MP: 04:15 Wow. And, and so you, you, you made the leap much to the Chagrin of the people around you. And what was that like?
AQ: 04:25 I'm going to be honest with you, I wasn't afraid at all. We did it in a way that made us feel safe. So what we did was we actually built our business for a year before we actually put our full-time jobs. So we were working our nine to five corporate jobs and then building our business in the background. So every night, teaching fitness classes every weekend, doing everything from accounting to marketing to you name it, we did it, we did everything, you know, the nuts and bolts of the entire business. And we've done it for a full year. And because we were still getting our salary from our corporate jobs, we just put all of the money that we were making into a bank account and how to just sit in there, which probably from an accounting perspective, all your solutions are probably like, oh, that's terrible. No, just sitting in a bank. But we, we did it as like a safeguard for ourselves so that we knew we had a minimum of a year salary each of put away. So that when we took that leap of faith of quitting our full-time jobs, it wasn't scary because we knew that we were okay.
MP: 05:21 Wow, that's, that's fantastic. I mean the story of anyone leaving their job and going into business for themselves. It is interesting to me, I'm sure to our listener, and I'm sure our listener can relate to some of the people's comments as well as just some of the unknowns that you would get into, but you did something very smart, which was to have funding to make sure that everything would be all right financially to guide you through into, into your business. So what was the, what were those first couple of, uh, years? The, when you got started, what, what did it look like? How did it go?
AQ: 06:01 Well, we were really fortunate that when we got into business, we started it with our fit chicks boot camp, which we actually no longer run may, she stopped running them as of November of last year, but we ran it for 10 years and we thought 10 years was a good year to have done. But when we first started we were really fortunate that it was kind of at like the beginning stages of the bootcamp sort of phase in cause health and fitness seems to go in phases where it's like, you know, crossfits really popular than bootcamp. And then, you know, yoga is like the hot topic and spinning and insert. It kind of goes in like themes we find in it. It's always kind of recycles as all cause you see now it's back to spinning and things like that. But when we started bootcamp was just at the beginning stages.
AQ: 06:41 And so we grew really quickly and we actually, the day that our business exploded, I remember it so clearly because it was Laura and I, we were in Ottawa, Ontario and we were there for an interview. It was our very first television interview that we were doing and we were like super nervous. We didn't really know what you're doing. And you know, we had no PR experience at that point. And we showed up and we did this thing and you know, it was awkward and it was funny but it was great. And when we left there, we had um, a girl who had been in one of our classes. She loved our program so much that she did her friend, actually she, I'm, she requested her friend who was a writer for the Toronto Star to write an article on us. And because she felt like we were kind of visionaries in the industry, we didn't kind of fit the same mold as most people in health and fitness.
AQ: 07:31 And we saw our business right from the beginning is not just a fitness class but just as so much more. And we had like a big vision where we said we were building a fitness empire and we always saw it as a big sort of goal. So knowing that she had us actually interviewed by a friend of hers at the Toronto Star and the day that we did that television interview, we also had the front page of the business section of the Toronto Star. And it was also the day that the day after Canada won gold at the Olympics. So the Toronto Star was free. And so it literally just was like all-stars aligned and it's just, it allowed for our business, like literally be left that interview and open up our emails. And it was just like all of our classes were sold, everything was like packed, like we had people on waitlists. It was crazy. And so that was kind of the height of it because it kind of gave us this huge boost in our business. But we were always very fortunate that we didn't actually struggle. Our business grew very quickly and we went from the two locations that Laura and I were teaching two 35 locations across Canada within about three years.
MP: 08:37 Wow.
MP: 08:45 And what were, what were some of the, the experiences of growing going from, you know, explosion, that's a pretty dramatic word, right? And you can just imagine all this publicity, all of a sudden these classes are affiliate went from, you know, a couple of classes to 35 locations or their pains growing.
AQ: 09:05 Oh, of course. There's always gonna be growing pains. There's always going to be, you know, pluses and minuses to everything. I mean we like to see everything as lessons that we learned, you know, we, we learned, you know, that one of the biggest things I think for us, because we were expanding so quickly and we didn't have a bricks and mortar, so we were renting out spaces that we had to figure out a way to build a system so that we could support our trainers that we were hiring, that we're across Canada, that we weren't face to face with to make sure that our brand was not being sort of jeopardized in terms of what was being taught and you know, that there was the quality across the board and we didn't have that because we, in the beginning it was just us. And then when we first started expanding it was just in Toronto.
AQ: 09:47 So we had like trainers come in and do actual in person trainings. We had to figure out sort of ways to do it virtually and to do it well. So building that whole brand training and trainer experience and like actually building a system that they could follow was a big step. And that was a big learning curve because we weren't getting feedback that, you know, oh I went to this class and it was totally different than this. And we were like, oh, that's not the experience that we're going for. That's not what our brand stands for. And so that was I think one of our biggest learning curves from the growth standpoint.
MP: 10:16 Wow. And what was it like building systems for your business?
AQ: 10:20 Billing systems is something that I really liked doing. I'm nerdy like that in the sense that I like to build systems and I like to build content and that's what I'm like, one of my biggest strengths is. So building out a system and kind of having that was really great. The part that we struggled with was supporting our training staff. And so that's when we actually, when we realized that we brought on someone into our team as our full-time employees so that she could actually manage the team because we just felt like for us, that's just identifying your strengths and your weaknesses are probably one of the most important things I think in business. Right. And, and to not force yourself to do the things that you are not strong at is one of our rules. And so we immediately hired someone to kind of take that role on because people management is just not our thing.
MP: 11:04 Wow. Very, very smart. Very cool story. And definitely we talk a lot about systems and process, uh, on this podcast and certainly refreshing to hear that you implemented that and the, the results that it produced in your business. Now you mentioned that after 10 years you've ended your bootcamp. Share a little bit about the future. Where are things going with fit chicks?
AQ: 11:29 Oh my gosh, it's so exciting. So, you know, after 10 years of teaching our fitness classes, it was just, you get to a point where you're like, okay, you know, I do believe that, you know, we're like, where you're focused on is where you're gonna grow. And we're right at the time when we made that decision for about a year, we had our focus really split because it is still just Laura and I leading this entire company. And then we do have contract employees and we actually just hired on a part time employee as a programs manager where she starts fencing. But it is just the two of us and it's a lot for two people. And you know, our business grew to the point where we were having our bootcamp fitness classes. We were having weekend health retreats, maybe only three or four times a year, but it was still an undertaking.
AQ: 12:12 We had built that in person system and actually built an at home system and sold it through the shopping channel here in Canada. And so like a DVD system and everything. And then from there we realized that the one thing that we really wanted to do was just to help continue to educate women because that's what we're really passionate about is helping women identify what it is that they need in their life to kind of live their best life. Right? We've been very fortunate that our business has been able to give us the life that we choose and being able to now help other fitness professionals or women that are interested in health and fitness, get educated so that they can also live through their passion and feel like, you know, the things that they do, light them up and not feel stuck in a position.
AQ: 12:53 It was something that was really important to us. And so we actually expanded our business into doing an online education platform. So we run, we also run fit chicks academy and that's our main focus now. So fidgets academy is where we have certifications, we have global certifications, we have one that does our fitness and nutrition expert certification and the secondary one is our holistic nutrition weight loss expert program. And so those are certifications where we can actually help women globally get certified in those areas to then teach in their communities. So it's kind of like paying it forward in a different way of having now instead of teaching women how to get healthy and fit, I'm now educating women to help their communities get healthy and fit. So it's a really cool way of us just continuing to expand our regional opportunity. Remarkable. Yeah. And so it was just, you know, for us it was an easy, not an easy decision because it wasn't an easy decision, but it was an important decision that we had to make where it was like right now we're focusing on bootcamp and then we're also focusing on education and content creation, everything else and you know, continuing to get certified in different areas ourselves to continue to educate ourselves to continue to grow.
AQ: 13:59 And it just, it felt like we were really kind of being pulled in way too many directions and we couldn't put 100% into any area. And so we just really wanted to get really focused on that one side cause we knew that that's kind of for our personal life as well. That's kind of the growth that we wanted, which was to be able to have a completely online business so that we could then live in Hawaii if we choose and still be able to operate our business and and kind of have that flexibility built into our life a little bit more. As you know, I have a child now and things like that, so this just as our life changed, we wanted our business to evolve to.
MP: 14:33 Very cool. Let's talk a little bit about your philosophy. When you started out with Fitch x, it was, you mentioned part of the reason why people were paying attention to you. You did fit
MP: 14:52 the, the model or the typical fitness program. Tell us a little bit about that and what you were bringing to the marketplace.
AQ: 15:00 Yeah, I mean, one of the things that we always found really interesting about health and fitness is that everyone believes that it has to be cookie-cutter, that you have to look a certain way and that you have to do a certain thing in order to fit into health and fitness to in order to be considered healthy, you have to have a six-pack, which in all reality, that's actually completely inaccurate. As six. I've known a lot of people that have, you know, six-pack abs and they're actually very unhealthy because they're following really unhealthy behaviors. To get to that extreme, I think, you know, for us it was really about approaching health and fitness. The way that we saw it, which is health and fitness is what changed my life. Focusing on, you know, fitness and nutrition and eating better to fuel my body and realizing that what I put into my body was making me feel certain ways is what kind of made me adapt and change my own life and fitness itself helped me with major anxiety issues that I had growing up.
AQ: 15:56 I had a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder and a lot of anxiety and I used fitness in the beginning as like a tool to lose weight cause I was like 15 when I started getting into yoga and things like that cause I didn't really understand it. But then as I got older and fitness became something that was so much more to me, it became this instead of a punishment of, you know, which is what most women use it for, which is like, or what most people use it for in the sense of, oh I eat this now I have to work out more. I use fitness as a way just to like feel my day and to just feel good inside and out. And so what we really wanted to do is take that philosophy of using health and fitness to enhance your life and enrich your life as opposed to using it as a punishment and as a tool. And then also understanding that it doesn't have to, you don't have to fit a certain mold and you don't have to do a certain thing in order to be considered healthier fit. It's, you know, just movement itself and you know, looking at any way that you look and enjoying the process and along the way is, is so much better I guess, than just having to kind of fall into or fall victim to sort of the marketing that's out there.
MP: 17:01 MMM. It's a refreshing.
AQ: 17:05 Thank you.
MP: 17:06 And so what have you, with the type of clients that you have helped you, there's thousands of people, thousands of women that you've helped. What are some of the stories of how they've been able to transform their lives?
AQ: 17:20 Oh my goodness, there's so many. You know, we've had women that have come into our programming and you know, they have never worked out in their entire life and they've been intimidated by the gym and they've been intimidated by Huffington just because it is an intimidating environment. And I can say that because even I feel that way and I know how to, you know, I've been working out with, like I said, since I was 15 years old, so I don't want to age myself, but that's a long time and I, I can still feel intimidated in some areas. You know. And so I think helping women that have never worked on the life, just to be able to move their bodies and understand how to use their bodies as like a tool has been so amazing. And you know, we've seen women that have lost, like I had one girl who within a year she lost over a hundred pounds of our programs and she went on to then become a trainer because she wanted to inspire other women to be able to then know that, you know, it's possible.
AQ: 18:13 Cause I remember her story, she's so clearly, you know, she told me in a very media name when she used to walk to our class, her husband used to work with her because she couldn't carry her weights to class because it was too happy. And the idea of just even doing one squat was like terrifying or a pushup was terrifying. And what we did though in our classes that was so different than most programs is that we modified everything to make sure that everybody felt included and challenged, but never overwhelmed. And that's the key to like health and fitness is finding things that you can do that makes you feel accomplished. Because so many times we do things and then we're like, oh, I can't do that. And then you feel like a failure and nobody wants to do anything where that makes you feel bad, that makes you feel like you can't.
AQ: 18:52 And so what we did was we would always encourage, you know, everything from, to give you an example, like in our classes, if we were doing pushups, it wouldn't just be like, Oh, do them on your knees. We would actually have a level even below that, which would be like you can do them against the wall, which then takes even more pressure out. And it allows for you to kind of build-up that strength and not only the strength, but the mobility and the feeling in your body. So you understand how to do a properly so that when you have proper form and technique, you can then slowly work your reaction on her knees and then on your child's, eventually we'd have women doing them like with claps and crazy things, they'd be going crazy. But it's really about offering those progressions and offering an environment that was like a community that Reuben felt supported as opposed to, you know, I've seen classes where there's trainers that are like literally yelling in people's faces or like saying, Oh yes you can do this. And instead of giving them an opportunity to just kind of try something else on that is working the same muscles but not overwhelming them. But yeah, so that's like one of the girls, pretty much Jen and she, you know, she told me like the program completely changed her life because she went from not barely being able to walk to the class, to becoming a trainer and helping other women transform their lives.
MP: 19:57 It's beautiful. You know, we have many, many listeners would be probably working so many hours a week working. You know, as we've talked about virtual, you're building a virtual business. Many of our listeners work virtually and therefore they're in front of a computer all the time at which these things can be very unhealthy. Let's talk a little bit about the, the risks of spending too much time of our life working and sitting at a desk and in front of a computer that we would have on our lives in our bodies.
AQ: 20:33 Oh my gosh. I know that also. Well, cause I spend a lot of time in front of my computer too. So I understand that. And it's, you know, sometimes it can really get, it can like really pull you in, right? Cause you're like sitting in front of a computer and you're just working and you don't like it out. But you know some of the main risks there's comparing now sitting to smoking. Like in terms of your health, they're saying that there's been studies that show that like the amount of sitting that we do in today's society can actually be just as detrimental to your health as like smoking could obviously not causing like similar issues. Like, you know, maybe not like cancer-causing agents and things like that. But in terms of like actual overall health and wellness, it can impact your health in such a big way because we just, we spend so much time just being completely immobile, you know, if you think about it, and we generally, and I know I've been victim to this myself, is that I wake up and then I immediately just, you know, I have breakfast, then I come and I sit on my computer and I stay here until maybe, um, you know, whatever time it is.
AQ: 21:35 I finished work, this is before my daughter of course. And then sitting on the couch to like unwind and then you go to bed and like literally there's just no movement in your body whatsoever. And it's just, it's so bad for us because we're meant to move and we're meant to be mobile. We're meant to be agile. And so you have to take time, you know, to really just get moving every single day. And it's hard. And also not only like just from that aspect, but also there's studies that are showing too just from being on our computer so much that it can really impact all of your joints, especially in your hands and your wrists. I don't know if you'd get that Michael, but I know for me I get like really sore sometimes if I'm not sitting at my proper desk. And then just certainly the angle that we're using, right? Yeah. It's just the angle that we're using our cup or keyboards with. So it's just like trying to find tools that are going to support you when you are working. But then also I think the solution is finding ways to fit health and fitness into your life that doesn't feel overwhelming or daunting.
MP: 22:35 Hmm. Great thoughts and yes, absolutely. I experience the pains and challenges just like everyone else. There's no end to the, to the work. And so unless it's interrupted, unless we interrupt ourselves and, and go and do the exercise, it just doesn't get easier. It gets harder. And so fitness, um, is one of those things that it's amazing. It's remarkable what it can do. When we do it. Um, just feel how it makes us think. And so anything that we can do to now inspire our listener to take the time to interrupt themselves and spend time focusing on our body and our, and our health. What are some tips that you have for helping break that behavior of not doing what's right for our body and instead doing what is right?
AQ: 23:31 Sure. I have a couple. The first thing would be to find something that you actually enjoy. You know, oftentimes I would hear clients say to me like, Oh, I'm going to go for a run. I hate running. That would be like the next statement after they say they're going for a run and I would ask them, well, why are you going to go for a run? Then why don't you go to a Zumba class? Why don't you go to play tennis? Why don't you go and take a bootcamp Lazarus or go swimming? Like find the thing that you actually enjoy rather than just forcing yourself to do what you think you should be doing because you had read about it or because your friends doing it or whatever. Do the thing that you enjoy because any movement is better than no movement and if you don't like something, you are not going to continue with it.
AQ: 24:15 It's that simple. Like if you don't like running, you are not going to continue running. It's never really going to. The chances of it actually growing on you are very limited. So I would definitely recommend just find the thing that you actually enjoy. The other thing is don't feel like that pressure to do something for an hour every day. This is this whole weird phenomenon that we have in our society that we believe that you have to work out for one hour in order for it to be considered a workout. And then if you can't fit that hour in, then it doesn't count or that it's not worth it. And so, you know, I have heard so many women say like, oh well I want to work out in the morning but I only have like 20 minutes to myself. So I just don't do anything 20 minutes if that's all you have, that's better than zero minutes.
AQ: 25:00 And it's actually proven that if you do hit training, which is short for high-intensity interval training, is actually more effective for your body long term, especially for weight loss and weight management and for your, just for your overall health and cardiovascular health, it'll challenge you in different ways. It's actually proven to be more effective than blow impact studies state cardio. So if you're considering doing that high-intensity interval training is essentially, if you don't mind, I'll just give a quick example of too, there's going to be a question I'd have. So yeah. So, so a really simple way of looking at it is it is short bursts of like something cardiovascular that increases your heart rate and followed by an active recovery periods. So to give you an example, if you are on a treadmill, so if you have listeners that, or you're at the gym and you're on a treadmill rather than doing an hour of like walking or, I mean if walking is where you're at, then that's perfect. But if you, if you do that hour, that's cool. But if you, why did you, even if you're walking and you're on a treadmill, if you can power walk one minute and then walk slow like at a low intensity, which is a recovery state for one minute, and then alternate that for 20 minutes, you are actually going to burn more calories and you are going to be more effective with your workout. Then if you actually did a full hour of just walking in a low impact state.
MP: 26:24 Wow.
MP: 26:31 So that's a really good, simple example. Another one would be, you know, same thing. A lot of times people think heightened has to be just with cardio. It can also be a weight training. So what you would do then, what I like to do personally is I actually like to do this thing called fat training, just peripheral heart action training. And this is another way just to get your workouts and to be more effective. So oftentimes when people are doing strength training, which is with weights, they oftentimes think, okay, well I have to train lower body one day, then I have to train upper body the next day and you know, and then it gets a little bit confusing and it can feel a little daunting. Overwhelming. What I like to do is I start off in the, and this is actually Laura of my business partner, she taught me this when we were away and I was like, I love this and it's probably, you know, the best type of workout for me because it's fast.
AQ: 27:17 I get my workouts done in 35 minutes and I'm like over it and it's like start off with 10 minutes of like a moderate cardio to get my heart rate up. And then I just follow up after that with one upper body exercise. And then when lower body exercise, so I might train doing say for example bicep curls and then for lower body I might just do like a leg press and then I do three sets of each, so 12 repetitions, three sets of each and then that's done. And then I choose two different exercises after that. So to one everybody with lower body and then I, again, I repeat it, three different rounds of upper body in three different rounds of lower body and that's my workout for the day. But then what happens by doing that is peripheral heart action training forces your heart then to pump blood to your upper body and then all of a sudden in the next round you're working your lower body.
AQ: 28:10 Now it forces your heart to pump blood, your lower body, so it actually works your heart better. It's proven to help you lose more of that. And then also it's allowing your body so that instead of sitting and resting during strength training, you oftentimes see people sitting on a bench resting for a minute on their phones or whatever at the gym instead of resting. I'm using that time really effectively. So while my upper body is resting and working, then lower body and then I go back to my upper body and then back to mid-lower body. So I never really actually have any downtime. So it allows for me to cut my workout almost like by about 15 minutes because I have no rest periods because my rest peers are actively working in different muscle groups. So that's a really great way. Like if you're someone who's listening now that might seem a little bit more advanced, but it's really not that hard if you just try to focus on just something upper body, something lower body, and you can keep it really, really simple with those movements. Yeah, I definitely think though, it's just finding the things that work for you and remember something is better than nothing, even if it's five minutes, just move.
MP: 29:10 I agree completely there. There's a something that had been a couple of years ago, there was this challenge 21 it was actually 21 pushups for 21 days and it was for veterans, right? For veterans. It was to remember those that were suffering from PTSD. Uh, and I forget exactly why it was 21 days. At any rate, I did that for 21 days and it was remarkable the results that it produced, just 21 per strips for 21 days. And so this year I, I in the spring is we, uh, we had our second child, uh, about a year, just about a year ago now. So two children, you know, we're busy and all that good stuff. It's so it's been hard to maintain consistency and in getting exercise. And so I just like, I gotta do something. And, and I've been doing, it's been probably three months now, 21 pushups just every day, whether it's in the morning or night, there's like, as long as I do the 21, and I will tell you, uh, I'm, I'm quite a fit person.
MP: 30:16 I've done an iron man triathlon. I've, I've done all that stuff, but that'll, it doesn't matter what I've discovered. It doesn't matter how fit one is at one moment or unfit at one moment. That can change very rapidly. So when I'm then in top physical condition and then boom, putting on weight, not exercising and I'm right back at square one. So the first bit of 21 pushups, it was hard to do those pushups really hard. And so I would take a break-even for 21 please. Yes. By like, Oh yeah, there's five and do another five. And I will tell you, it just improves over time. And I love the idea of the upper body, lower body and the co the concept of it pumping. Uh, you're getting your heart moving and moving blood, different areas and, and literally it could be 21. It could be five pushups and it can be five squats in a day would be better than none.
AQ: 31:10 Exactly. That's exactly it. Like just, you know, we're so caught up in the idea and did you know, I mean, someone told me this, I don't know if it's like fact, but they told me this and I totally can see how this was possible. They explained to me that the whole reason why fitness classes are an hour long at gyms is only because, um, in the beginning, gyms pay their trainers by the hour. And so they just, they made them an hour fitness class for that reason. And that totally makes sense, right? Because it's like, oh, corporations just, you know, they don't want to pay their trainers if the class is 45 minutes, they don't want to pay them for the hours. So they just made classes and hour and then everyone just kind of gets stuck on this idea of, and us be now asking an hour really doesn't like, I'm going to tell you that majority of people I know that are all in this health and fitness world, um, we all work out for about 35 minutes or less a day.
AQ: 31:58 That's it. It actually can do more harm than good if you're restraining for longer. And I was going to see a natural path and we were talking about this cause I had high-stress levels at one point and she was saying that, you know, working out anything about 45 minutes actually puts your body into a state of stress. And by putting it into a body of uh, to a state of stress, you're actually producing more cortisol. And Cortisol is actually one of the hormones sites, um, stores belly fat. So if you are someone who's listening now and you're like, oh, I intend to gain a lot of weight around my midsection, that seems to be where I hold a lot of belly fat. You might actually have like high cortisol also as entrepreneurs or you know, I'm sure accounting has a lot of stresses, especially around tax time. But yeah, if you find that it can be that your cortisol is high, so then actually going to work out for an hour, we'll just actually be doing, it'll have like more of a negative impact on your weight because you're actually going to be producing even more cortisol, which is something that you need to learn how to reduce.
MP: 32:55 Hmm. You know, it's remarkable and my hope from this episode is that our listener would, wherever they're at with wherever their conditioning is, is to take on something that moves you towards a better healthy life where you're fit and fierce. And, uh, and hopefully this episode has inspired you to take on something new. Let us know what you, what you've done or what you're committing to. You can go to The Successful bookkeeper Facebook group and declare that you're going to go sign up with fit checks or you're going to start doing 21 pushups or even one push up a day. Doesn't matter. Do something because we know that the way you approach your business, the way you work with your clients, the way you this all your work comes back to your family. A little bit of health, a little bit of fitness will make it so much better for everyone.
MP: 33:54 I couldn't agree more. Beautiful. Well, this is absolutely been amazing, Amanda. I just love your story. I, I just love the fact that you're an entrepreneur helping now so many small business, really micro-business owners find their way in health and fitness and, and inspiring them to go on and change health and fitness for so many people on the planet. It's, it's remarkable what you're doing. And uh, on behalf of our audience that are listening right now and small business owners themselves, I thank you for your generosity that you've given us today and sharing your wisdom and, and what you've been up to.
AQ: 34:35 Oh No, thank you. It's been my pleasure.
MP: 34:37 Wonderful. And we'd love to have you back and share what's happening in your business at some point in the future.
AQ: 34:44 Sure. I would love that. Thank you.
Speaker 3MPshare the best way for our listener if getting more fit or taking on being fit and fierce is up to them, what would be the best way to do that with your organization?
AQ: 35:00 So the best way would be just like to check us out at Fit chicks dot. Ca You can also check us out on Instagram or on Facebook at the chicks or fit chicks academy. Um, both of them are active and we are always posting tips and tricks and everything else and we actually do have a challenge coming up that is a health and wellness challenge. If you're interested in joining us for our virtual challenge, getting healthy and fit with us, that is something that we do have coming up in a few weeks. So we'd love to have you join.
MP: 35:29 Beautiful. Well, we'll have the links to your website in our show notes. And again, Amanda, thank you.
AQ: 35:37 Thank you.
MP: 35:38 And with that, we wrap up another episode of The Successful Bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's wonderful guests and to get access to all sorts of valuable free business-building resources, you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Until next time, goodbye.