How to Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It

[00:01] Allegra Sinclair: Hey, this is Allegra, and I have a really exciting announcement. Several months back, I was checking my analytics for my podcast and I noticed that I had passed the 100,000 download mark and I put a note in my planner to put together some sort of celebration to thank all of my listeners for helping me reach this milestone. And then I blinked and six months had passed. So I’m actually very close right now to 150,000 downloads, but we are going to move forward with celebrating 100,000 downloads. Why am I telling you this? Because there are two phases to my celebration and both of them will benefit you, my awesome listeners. Phase one. I’m going to do an all Q and A episode. So the last episode in the month of February will be me answering all of the questions that you submit. How can you submit a question?

It’s really easy.

[00:59] Allegra Sinclair: You can send me an email at podcast@allegrativity.com or you can go to the website allegrativity.com/QA and you can record your question right there. You can record a short question and then I’m going to answer it for you live on the show. So that is phase one. I’m going to do an entire episode that is dedicated to answering the questions that you have. Phase two, which I’m going to tell you more about next week, is we’re actually going to have a contest where there’s going to be a couple different things that you could do to help me celebrate the milestone. And then you’re going to win prizes. What kind of prizes? Mugs, t shirts, books, subscriptions to Audible, and a big ol whopping $500 coupon sponsored by one of my other clients who wants to open up the world of coaching to one of you. So how do you get started? Go to allegrativity.com/qa to record your question or send me an email to podcast@allegrativity.com to submit your question. I will gather up all the questions and then answer them in the last episode that I’m publishing in February 2023. Then for phase two, all you need to do is make sure you’re on my email list. You can make sure that you’re subscribed to the email on that same page.

You’ll want to make sure you’re on my email list because when I open up the phase where you can start doing little fun activities in order to get entries into the overall prize drawings, that is how I’m going to communicate, through email.

[02:44] Allegra Sinclair: So thank you so much for helping me reach this major milestone. I could not be more excited, and I thank you so very much and I can’t wait to thank you in more tangible ways over the next few weeks. Now on to today’s episode.

[03:14] Allegra Sinclair: Welcome to the year confidence self podcast with Allegra Sinclair. Get ready to punch fear in the throat and gain confidence like never before. I help corporate women get the confidence to ask for the job they want and do the work they love. Isn’t it time you got unstuck and showed the world how fabulous you are? Hey, welcome to this week’s episode of the podcast I Am On Fire about our guests. This episode, we are talking about a topic that is sometimes controversial. This is definitely a big Girl Pennies episode because we’re going to get into some things, and you may want to have a pen and paper next to you, or you may just want to go ahead and schedule time in to listen to this episode more than one time. Because today I am so delighted to bring Trinity Larva, also known as the Curvy Fit RN to the show. Her website and her programs challenge women to love themselves unapologetically, exercise consistently and boldly accept who they are to fulfill their purpose, and change the trajectory of their legacy. This conversation is deep, y’all. Trynette is going to challenge you. She’s going to encourage you, but most importantly, she’s going to prepare you to walk forward differently. Understanding that confidence and curvy confidence is not something superficial that has to do with how you wear your nails or your hair, but a skill that you can develop which absolutely impacts how you earn the money that you deserve. Let’s get into it. So tell me, why curvy confidence? Where did the inspiration for that come from?

[05:04] Trynette Lariba: Curvy confidence. I love this conversation. So what it came from was actually just me being me, right? So what had happened was I had been running from my calling. And I know many of your listeners probably do not jokey, joke, but I was running from my calling. I actually was supposed to start Hurry Fit Chicks in the beginning of 2016, and I was like, I’m not doing that. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to have to fight against people and go against the grain and all of that good jazz. And after I had my flip over truck accident September 1, 2016, and everything literally flipped upside down in my life, one of the things that God and I had a conversation about was me actually stepping into who I really am and doing what he created me to do. And so one of those things was me accepting the body that I was gifted. And I do call it a gift, accepting that body in all its pervaciousness because I was born with this body. I didn’t even know I was born with this purpose. Right? Sometimes we have to mature into things, and things aren’t always clear in the beginning, but they were certainly made clear to me during my healing process. And so I began to not only forgive myself for wanting a different body for many years and trying to conform to what society said is fits, is healthy and is attractive, I had to really forgive myself for not accepting that God doesn’t make any mistakes. And so the body I was sent in was on purpose to help me fulfill purpose. And so I grew in my confidence, in my self assuredness, the more I accepted who he said that I was. And it became the embodiment of who I am, what I am, and why I am extremely confident in this curvature’s.

[07:31] Allegra Sinclair: Body that is so deep in and of itself. I just want to take a cracker to make sure I get all of that. But you started off by saying that you were running away from your calling and that you weren’t ready to take up the mantle of like, challenging preconceptions or you sounded like you almost thought you would get in trouble or you were going to do something that was controversial. So tell me what the controversy was around being confident in your body.

[07:55] Trynette Lariba: Oh, absolutely. It was definitely controversial. It definitely is controversial. But I don’t really care where I am. I really could care less. But it’s controversial. And it’s only controversial because there have been so many lies put out there. Right. And so what I teach causes people to have full paradigm shifts. Number one, that there is nothing wrong with the body that you came into the world with. There is nothing I’m sorry.

[08:33] Allegra Sinclair: That’s controversial.

[08:34] Trynette Lariba: That is controversial. And I’ll tell you why. It’s because so much of the narrative in society is conformity. And it’s about everybody’s body looking alike, which of course, causes many women to turn to surgery. So we got every woman all of a sudden trying to look like a Coca Cola bar.

[08:57] Allegra Sinclair: Got you.

[08:59] Trynette Lariba: So you actually accepting the body that you came in is controversial, even revolutionary, because you’re not trying to I’m sorry.

[09:11] Allegra Sinclair: I’m loving the word revolutionary. Yes. Because there was something it’s painful to listen to, not the way you’re saying it, but think about that for just a woman, just a moment, rather right. As a woman, to think that whatever my body looks like right. But the way that I am built, I should rebel against the way I look and the fact that I might like me or accept me is controversial, is so deep and so rooted in hate.

[09:41] Trynette Lariba: It is.

[09:42] Allegra Sinclair: I’m not laughing because I think it’s funny, but I’m like, wow, think about all the messages that we get as we’re growing up as young women. There is something wrong with us or that we need to be different. And the money and the energy and the time we spend. I talk a lot about trying to pretend to be trying to be who you’re not. Right, right. But think I usually talk about it from like a mental perspective or from not showing up in your career, like shrinking and being small in the workplace. But it takes it to a whole other level if I feel like I have to shrink physically in order to be acceptable.

[10:21] Trynette Lariba: Yes.

[10:22] Allegra Sinclair: That’s deep.

[10:23] Trynette Lariba: Yes. And I know you talk a lot about careers on here and in professional women. But this is the thing. When you have not fully shown up in your body and learned to really embrace who you are authentically and love yourself wholly, that spills into other areas. So you cannot show up at the office and show up in presentations and feel 100% confident. If there is not confidence fully in the body that you’re walking in, it’s definitely going to manifest itself. You will find yourself being more humble than you should be. You will find yourself questioning if you should even be at the forefront or feeling like all eyes are on me. You’ll feel self conscious even in what you’re wearing. Right. I’ve spoken to many Kirby women who delay becoming speakers because they’re uncomfortable in their own body and because they have inadequacies that they’re feeling and insecurities. They project that on audiences and presume that they’re feeling a certain way about them. So they’re delaying, even getting to their coinage, as I like to say. So, confidence is connected to your coins. Okay?

[11:55] Allegra Sinclair: This is like seven podcast episodes in one cleanage. Confidence is affecting your point, girl. Okay, we’re going to have to go back. Sorry. We just have to go back. Okay. Because I knew that I told you it might be cold. See, that’s why it’s cold outside, because if you had all this fire going on and it was hot outside, who knows what might happen? There could be, like, a combustion in there. It had to be cold because this is so hot. So I’m going to take you back just a minute. So what you were saying was that you were running, so you were shrinking, pun intended. You were shrinking from your message because you thought the world wasn’t ready to hear it.

[12:34] Trynette Lariba: That’s correct.

[12:34] Allegra Sinclair: The first thing was that it was controversial to say that there’s nothing wrong with your body. What were a couple of other things that were controversial? Because it couldn’t have been just that one thing that had you running from speaking your truth. So what other things were stopping you or delaying you? Right.

[12:50] Trynette Lariba: So the other thing that was delaying me was my size. I said, God, you know, I don’t look like any of these folks, right? What folks? The folks that people have in their mind when they think about fitness. Right? I was like, God, you know, I don’t look like I don’t look like that. I don’t have that body type either. And I said, oh, okay. So, God, you want me out here to spread the message of gifting your body and that you can be healthy and fit in the body and in the shape that you have, that you can reach a level of excellency in your workouts and in fitness with this body? When I’m a registered nurse and I have had to go toe to toe with other nurses in the nurses at the nursing station, I’ve had them questioning how fit I was, because also in their minds was, okay, to be fit, you must be size four, size six, size eight in order to be fit. And so I even had people who worked at the hospital, actually, and I’m going to say the secretary. So the secretary on the unit was making comments, and I invited her to a workout. Okay? I invited her to the workout. She was much slimmer than I was and had said she had been working out at a gym. She could not hang.

[14:27] Allegra Sinclair: I just want to wave my hanky so hard right now. I want to jump up and down in my chair right now.

[14:35] Trynette Lariba: At.

[14:35] Allegra Sinclair: You outworking the person, right? Because there is this fallacy that finn equals healthy, right? And that conversely, fat must mean I know you say curvy, but I’m just going to speak unspoken that fat means unhealthy.

[14:53] Trynette Lariba: Well, that’s all right.

[14:54] Allegra Sinclair: And that fin means healthy. Right? That’s not true.

[14:58] Trynette Lariba: It’s not true. And I like to tell people I transform from curvy fat to curvy fit, right? Because one of the things is that my curvy body type will always exist. It doesn’t matter how small I become, that frame is always going to be curvy. But yes, definitely transform from curvy fat to fit, most definitely. But people struggle, and I mean, they really struggle with seeing me in my natural body transforming into becoming an even fitter person, because I am not for trying to make my body look like what you want it to look like in order for you to understand what fitness is. Because so many people are wearing the waist trainers, let’s keep it 100 are wearing quote unquote, shapewear, and I don’t wear any of that. So what you’re seeing is how a natural body transforms. And so because I am saying there’s no need for you to wear something to create an illusion of a shape that you do not have, because I am saying that you can be healthy and fit at your size as long as you are putting in the work. And I’ve explained to my doctor, if you look at the numbers, numbers don’t lie, okay? Numbers don’t lie. I have no chronic illnesses or diseases. All my tests come back extremely well. My blood pressure is low normally because I am extremely fit, okay?

[16:50] Allegra Sinclair: So when you say numbers don’t lie, the first thing that popped into my head was the number I think of from the doctor’s office when it comes to weight and fitness is BMI.

[17:02] Trynette Lariba: I see. Yes, ma’am, I see where you’re going there, ma’am.

[17:09] Allegra Sinclair: I was loving it that you then went on to say numbers don’t lie. And I was like, oh, where’s she going here? She’s about to hurt people’s feelings. But no, what you said was, hey, my numbers are good. My blood pressure is good. I mean, you didn’t say all this, but the numbers that we might focus on instead of BMI would be your blood pressure I don’t know, your heart rate, your cholesterol rate, those types of things. Versus like just straight BMI. Is that what you’re suggesting? BMI a lie.

[17:40] Trynette Lariba: I’m suggesting your lab work. I’m suggesting how well your heart is functioning, how well are your lungs functioning? Right? All of that. I’m talking about BMI is garbage. Okay, I am not a proponent of that nonsense.

[18:01] Allegra Sinclair: Don’t do it. How do you really feel? Sorry. That is so tweeted. You know I’m going to tweet that, right? Did you say garbage or trash? DMI is garbage. It is where did EMI come from? And how do they get to be the standard if it’s garbage?

[18:18] Trynette Lariba: Because we live in America, that’s why, okay?

[18:21] Allegra Sinclair: It doesn’t hurt anybody’s feeling because we.

[18:23] Trynette Lariba: Live in America where we create consumers, okay? So we have to have these parameters that will allow us to sell people things when they get to certain numbers.

[18:38] Allegra Sinclair: Oh, wait a minute. Are you suggesting trinity, I am entrusting my audience to you. Are you suggesting to my people that BMI and the systems we have that support the story that you have to be a certain size to be valued, is built around our ability to sell **** to people to try to make them be a certain size? Is that on here? On Beyonce’s Internet. Is this what you are saying, TriNet?

[19:08] Trynette Lariba: That is exactly what I’m saying. Wow. That is exactly what I am saying. Yes, ma’am. Yes it is.

[19:15] Allegra Sinclair: So you talked about the things that people will buy in order to try to pretend to be a certain size. So I heard you say shape wear and you said something about a waste thing. So here’s my question. Waste trainer. So that doesn’t actually make you smaller, it just makes it look like you’re smaller. And then when you take it off, you look like your regular self.

[19:35] Trynette Lariba: Correct.

[19:36] Allegra Sinclair: And that’s working for people. What happens when you take it off?

[19:41] Trynette Lariba: It works for people. It makes them feel better because for the time being, they look different. And I’m all about people being able to see what they look like all of the time and love what they see all of the time. There is absolutely no need to create a different looking shape because it makes other people feel better or other people will assume that you’re smaller. And why do you feel the need? What these people really should be asking themselves is why do they feel the need to create an illusion of a different shape in their clothing so that other people can see them and have what type of assumptions and why does that validation even matter? And what would be so wrong with showing yourself as you are?

[20:38] Allegra Sinclair: So I’m going to take a couple of guesses here. It’s important to me. Not me. It could be important to someone to look a certain way if they have been raised to believe that there’s only one way to look and that you know, that is not the way that you look, right. So it would make sense that I would want to look more like the people who society has decided are visible. Right. I remember when Beverly Johnson was first on a magazine cover, and at the time, I was young, so it’s not like I thought to myself, wow, this is a self actualized black woman who’s, like, breaking barriers for all of us. At the time, my little stuff was just like, oh, look, a woman who looks kind of like people I know is on a magazine. Right. I didn’t realize the depth of that moment, right? I didn’t realize the impact of that moment. But the second thing that I thought was that she looked a lot like the other people I saw on the magazines. I’m not hating Beverly Johnson as stunning, right? But what I’m saying is, the first time I saw a larger model in a magazine blew my mind, because my first thought wasn’t my first thought was not that she was big. My first thought was that she was beautiful. And then later it struck me that people in magazines all tend to look alike, and they didn’t look like this plus size model. So there is this definite emphasis in our society on a particular type. Straight hair blonde is even better, but, like, straight hair, specific features, thin body, though. Now it cracks me up because people are buying butts and lips. Girl, did you ever think there would be a day when people would be buying butts and lips? Because we have had having butts and lips all the time. Everybody was trying to tell us that butts and lips were wrong. Right? We were trying to make lips look smaller and, like, trying to tie our butts down. And now people are buying what we have naturally had eggs. And just say it. That’s a whole other podcast episode. It makes sense to me that people can get wrapped up in trying to look different if they think that that other way of looking benefits them, if it will make them more successful, if it will make them more lovable, if that will make them more happier. And there is this insidious conversation now you hear often when they’re talking about Liz on, they’re like, oh, it’s not about her size. We just want her to be healthy. You don’t know that child’s health. Right? You’ve heard that. And I’m like, oh, where’s all this concern? Okay, don’t get me started. I’m trying to behave myself today. I’m trying to behave a little bit.

[23:16] Trynette Lariba: Right?

[23:17] Allegra Sinclair: But the new conversation is, oh, it’s not about their size. You’re encouraging people to be unhealthy. What you have laid out for us very clearly is we don’t know that because we don’t know what the lab work is. But if she could produce for you lab work that showed she is just as healthy, if not healthier than your girlfriend, then what? Because then we would deal with what’s really happening, because nobody’s really concerned about your health. They have decided what attractive is, and they have decided that you are not it for whatever completely subjective reason, they have decided, right? Every year there’s a new shade of hair, of lips, right? There’s a new color, and there’s all this pressure on women to jump on board with whatever that is and then buy that new thing so that they can be acceptable and appropriate and loved and happy.

[24:05] Trynette Lariba: And I’m telling them, forget all of that.

[24:08] Allegra Sinclair: So tell me what kind of pushback you have gotten for telling that story, for saying, no, forget that.

[24:16] Trynette Lariba: Oh, my goodness, I’ve gotten called fat, unprofessional. I have been told to put the fork down. Right.

[24:28] Allegra Sinclair: Oh, wow.

[24:30] Trynette Lariba: Making assumptions, right? I have been people have stopped having conversations with me because you were supposed.

[24:38] Allegra Sinclair: To be apologetic about your current I.

[24:40] Trynette Lariba: Was supposed to be apologetic.

[24:43] Allegra Sinclair: And since you clearly didn’t understand your assignment correct. Was you clearly didn’t understand your assignment, so they talked terribly to you, and some even stopped talking to you.

[24:56] Trynette Lariba: That’s correct.

[24:56] Allegra Sinclair: So where did you get the courage so I talk a lot about punch and fear in the throat so where did you get the courage to punch the naysayers in the throat and continue to talk about curvy fitness?

[25:10] Trynette Lariba: The deeper I went in myself and the stronger my relationship with God became, the more courageous I became and the more I fully embraced the message. Because at the end of the day, the message is for you to know yourself, love yourself, accept yourself, and let all of those things push you to act and behave in ways that align with the values that you have for yourself. So everything that is produced from Kirby Fitzgeral will give you self confidence, self reliance, self validation. You will be a 100% warrior woman who does not need any hand clap, congratulations, or compliments from anyone else on the outside to feel fulfilled. This is very important because it gives you the freedom that this world will never give you.

[26:13] Allegra Sinclair: That’s a big promise. I’m loving it.

[26:18] Trynette Lariba: It definitely will, because the more you do for example, let me give you an example. Kirby Fitch. Right. Kirby Fitch. I remember when I first started, I would get all of these lights and comments and follows and whatnot. As I continued, it died down. But that was from people I knew. Then everything shifted, and then those who were in alignment with my message came along. But if I was just waiting for validation from the outside or waiting for a hand clap to get the courage to continue speaking truth, then I would not have continued. Curvy fitness is very much a part of me as much as I’m a part of it. It is a core part of my being. And so I become more courageous every day, every single day, because I am very secure in who I am, and I’m very secure on what I’m meant to do. And I know that igniting that light within other women to be bold and courageous and to have the audacity to be who they are that will allow them to be their best in the world and for them to transform lives that they are connected to. Because the thing about it is, if I don’t show up courageously and if I am not doing my works, then that means I will not ever be ready to transform the lives of women who are waiting to hear what is in me. Because what God gave to me is not in anyone else. So if I don’t embrace this and be bold and visible in it, then I am causing a delay in other women’s transformation, and I don’t want to be that person. So it’s extremely important to me to stay courageous, even in the face of adversity, even in the face of people who don’t get it.

[28:38] Allegra Sinclair: Because if they don’t get it, once again, I feel like I could be like, let’s just go ahead and thank you for coming. That was so good. But let me ask a question. I think what we’re talking about oh, ma’am, don’t make me feel old. I thought we were going to be friends. We are. I just had a birthday, so I’m a little sensitive, I’ll be honest with you. You know, I’m southern. It’s a habit. I’m sorry. I know, right? I called somebody sir the other day, and the child I said sir to was younger than me. And he looked at me like and I was like, I’m sorry. I had a Southern bell mama and a Jamaican daddy. I just have a formal speech pattern. Just roll with it. Just roll with it. But what we’re talking about really is and what is so important about what you have said is what we’re talking about feels like it might be surface or superficial. Right? We’re talking about being comfortable in your skin and, like, being curvy. Right. But we’ll go back to what you said earlier, which is, when you’re not confident in who you are, you show up differently. You shrink. You’re more humble than you should be. Other people take credit for what it is that you have done. Don’t step to the table and say, no, I don’t want to be an associate director when the person I’m reporting, when the person I’m replacing was a director. But you want me to be an associate director. No. Right. When the other person who’s doing what it is that I’m doing, they’re a VP. But you want me to continue to be a manager, and you’ll move. Right. So we don’t for what we deserve, we don’t show up as powerfully as we should. If there’s anything that’s making us feel less confident, whether it’s how we talk to ourselves. The fact that we don’t recognize when we’re being a complete badass. Right? There’s a number of different reasons, but one of them, which is about physicality, is it’s not just about you wearing the right size skirt. It is about you stepping into who you are powerfully because there are people waiting for you. This isn’t light. This is heavy stuff we’re talking about. If you don’t get everything out of your way in order to be who you are, somebody’s not going to become who they are because as you just said, they’re waiting on you because your message is for you. Nobody else can tell your story. So if you don’t get the stuff that’s on you, off you so you can tell your story, you know that that is connected to others who will not be able to be who they are. That is a deep responsibility.

[31:01] Trynette Lariba: It really is.

[31:03] Allegra Sinclair: But it’s important because how you feel about yourself then impacts how you show up in other areas. What kind of mom you are, what kind of sister you are, what kind of employee you are. So I understood you to say that you kind of stepped away from society’s lies by getting a deeper relationship with God all over that thought. Life prayer, life. Critical. Correct. Are there a couple of exercises you can give people or a couple of tools that you can offer to the audience today to help them act on how they begin to think differently? So when I work with my clients, we talk a lot about what it is that they do and how they view themselves. But once they figure that out and they decide that they want to be viewed differently, they have to act on that. So just knowing isn’t enough. You have to work it out. So are there a couple of things that you can suggest to people for the head part? Because we’re going to talk about fitness next. Are there a couple of things you can suggest to help you get your mind right so that you can reject the things that aren’t serving you while you work on becoming what did you say you went from curvy fat to curvy fit? There are a couple of exercises you can do for your head, for your mind while you’re working on your body.

[32:22] Trynette Lariba: Absolutely. So if you are someone that is spiritual or religious, definitely I would say read whatever that is. So for me it was a Bible. So whatever that is for you, I would definitely say to do that. The other thing I would definitely tell you to do is to journal. Right? So when you are going through whatever that study piece is, like I said the Bible. For me, when I would read scripture, I wouldn’t just read it and then that was it. I would read the scripture and I would have a blank line journal and I would ask myself. What is this scripture really saying? And what am I really supposed to get from this? And how can I apply this to my life right now? So that’s what I did. Also, affirmations are beautiful, right? One of the things that I did was and I tell others to do is to find affirmations that work on what you’re working on. Because you have to be able to reprogram your thoughts, right? So that’s a way to reprogram your thoughts is to replace them with positive thoughts about that particular thing. And so you’re going to replace those thoughts. You are also going to listen to podcasts surrounding those specific topics. That would be the third thing. And the fourth thing you’re going to do is to if it’s not within your circle now, you need to change circles. You need to be surrounded by people who are already aligned and not only aligned, but actually living out like their behaviors are actually aligned with how you aspire to be. So that when you’re in conversation with these people and when you are going out doing normal things because it is second nature to them, you will automatically receive the messaging subliminally as you’re also working through the scriptures, the affirmations and the journals to change your thoughts as well as listening to the podcast.

[34:48] Allegra Sinclair: I don’t know if you knew this, but I’m also a big believer in affirmations because I think when I was coming up, I knew that I needed to not talk to myself badly, right? I can’t remember who’s in it, but there’s this famous saying that most of us would get arrested if we talk to our friends the way we talk to ourselves, right? I don’t know who would do that. Like the bad talk police. But anyway, the point is that we talk to ourselves in a way we would never talk to anybody else we care about, but we do it to ourselves all the time. So I knew that I needed to change how I talked to myself. But what I didn’t understand initially was that it wasn’t just enough to stop talking about myself badly, but I had to start talking about myself in a way that was more powerful, right? Kind of like you can’t just stop doing something, correct? I don’t know. Do I have bad habits? Yes. I don’t know if I have any of them that I want to share right now on this podcast. It’s easier for me to stop doing something I don’t want to do if I replace it with a better habit, right? So in the absence of something, if you make space in your life, something else will fill it. That’s a great thing, right? We want to remove stuff that isn’t serving us, so stuff that serving us can come in. But when you’re talking about your thought life, we have millions of thoughts a day. So if I tell myself, okay, stop thinking about pink elephants, what am I going to do? Think about pink elephants. But instead of saying to myself, stop thinking about pink elephants, if I say to myself, think about lavender turkeys, I will think about lavender turkeys. So that’s what affirmations are. They’re lavender turkeys. So instead of thinking to myself, oh, I’m too old for that job, or, oh, I shouldn’t try to date this guy because he won’t find me attractive. Right. Instead, you fill your thoughts with positive thoughts around, I am so attractive and funny, he’d be a fool not to want me. Right. I am so overqualified for this job. I’m surprised they’re not chasing me down trying to offer it to me in the parking lot. While neither of those are Affirmations, they are powerful, energy changing thoughts. So I loved your suggestion to use an Affirmation that applies to what it is that you’re working on, because that’s the other thing I see in my practice a lot, that someone will have been working on something that isn’t their issue because that’s easy, or they had a tool for that. So I work with a lot of people who are completely comfortable making a lot of money, but they’ll be thinking of or working on Affirmations around money. And I’m like, oh, okay. So are you having a challenge in that area? Do you feel like you don’t deserve your salary? No. Okay. Did you used to think that you did not deserve that? No. Okay, so not for nothing, but why are you working on something that isn’t a problem? Are there some things that you might like to work on instead? That’s all I’m asking, right? A good coach asks good questions. So are there things that you would like to work on? Because maybe we could work on some of those things. So I love that. To the council to journal. And for you, you were journaling what you were reading in scripture, right, so that you can apply what you learned and then using Affirmations to change how you think about yourself, because what you think about, you bring about. And then you said to listen to good podcasts. That I love that because I love listening to podcasts. But it goes into your ears even when you think you’re not paying attention and it lives in you. Right. It plans to grow into good stuff. But then I love the council to change circles. Girl, you’re hurting some people’s feelings right now over them. So you mean I can’t be different if I continue to hang out with the people doing the stuff I knew I shouldn’t have been doing? Is that what you’re trying to say here on Beyonce’s Internet?

[38:38] Trynette Lariba: Absolutely. 100%.

[38:44] Allegra Sinclair: I have to act on the things that I want to be different. I have to think about being different. I have to support myself with my good thoughts, and then I need to be around people who are about the things I want to be about.

[38:59] Trynette Lariba: That’s right.

[39:00] Allegra Sinclair: That’s pretty cut and dry. So tell me, in your purpose for your website, you talked about exercising consistently.

[39:08] Trynette Lariba: Yes.

[39:08] Allegra Sinclair: So we’ve all heard that. So why is exercising consistently important? And how, if I haven’t been exercising with the way of the world, can I build in exercise consistently? Because let’s say somebody’s listened to this and they are raising their hand, they are ready to love themselves more unapologetically, and they want to boldly step into what it is that they know they’re supposed to do and they don’t want anything to prevent them, especially not physical health.

[39:35] Trynette Lariba: Absolutely.

[39:37] Allegra Sinclair: Does all exercise consistently work or is it a specific type? Talk to me about that.

[39:42] Trynette Lariba: Not a problem. So exercise, I like to go over what exercise is for. Right. So the short of it is that exercise is so that you are improving your body systems so that they work efficiently and effectively. Okay. On the shortest level, the smallest definition I can use for exercise. Right. That is the point. And so everybody requires and needs exercise. That’s just period. Everybody. And so why is exercise important? Well, for the simple fact that your body is working all of the time and for anything that works all of the time, you want it working effectively and efficiently. Okay. So exercise is going to allow your body to do just that on a regular basis when you are exercising consistently, that is a communication to your body. That communicates to your body many things. It communicates how much sleep we’re going to need, how much water we’re going to need, how often can we empty out our bodies, how effective is the release of natural processes? Trying to keep this as clean as possible.

[41:06] Allegra Sinclair: Okay, so everybody, it’s a grab your big girl panties moment. So people aren’t going to the bathroom?

[41:12] Trynette Lariba: People are not going to the bathroom? No, some people are. They didn’t know the bathroom once a week.

[41:18] Allegra Sinclair: Really?

[41:19] Trynette Lariba: Yes.

[41:22] Allegra Sinclair: Oh my Lord, girl, you are blowing my mind. I’m like, wait, waste is supposed to leave your body for a reason.

[41:28] Trynette Lariba: Yes, ma’am.

[41:30] Allegra Sinclair: We are fearfully and wonderfully made to take out the bad stuff, but sometimes the bad stuff only leaves us once a week. Mind blown. Okay.

[41:41] Trynette Lariba: Some people are going three times a week. Once again, it should be every single day.

[41:47] Allegra Sinclair: Okay?

[41:48] Trynette Lariba: Every single day. Because think about it, if waste is staying in your body longer than it should be, what do you think is happening? Right?

[41:56] Allegra Sinclair: I’m sitting here right now thinking, what’s it doing? Where is it going? What is it doing? And is it inviting friends? That is what I’m thinking.

[42:05] Trynette Lariba: Exactly. So that’s how we build up the toxins. That’s how we end up getting other disease processes and whatnot. Because our system is backed up, that’s how we start seeing different things on our skin, right? Because things are not going out. We start clogging in the system just.

[42:27] Allegra Sinclair: About moving to lose weight? No, exercise is to keep the machinery. So I think of my body like a car. So exercise is to keep to keep the car working optimally. But in addition, it is a health thing because it makes sure that I can take in and release what I need to take in vitamins, nutrients, proteins, all that stuff, and then release the stuff that I don’t need, because that’s how we’re made, right? Like exhaust. Nobody would want the exhaust from their car to stay in the car. Correct. Mind blown. So exercise plays a bigger role in overall health. I always heard of exercise related to weight loss, not related to health. I’m just going to be honest about that. I don’t know where I grew up or what, or because I’m a woman, but I never heard somebody tell me that I should exercise to keep my body working. Well, I only heard I should exercise when I was talking about losing weight. And I’m not mad at that. But I would have been much more inclined to start doing it earlier if I knew that.

[43:36] Trynette Lariba: Right. Which is why I’m changing the narrative, because it goes back to what we talked about earlier. The narrative is around weight, because then we can have you focusing on that number and have you buying diets, which I have a quotation marks diet, to continually work to get that number, you see? So it’s going to put you in a cycle of the only time I think about exercise is when I think about weight loss. Yes, but anyone in healthcare knows that exercise is for the improvement of your body, period. Right.

[44:15] Allegra Sinclair: My body has improved from exercise. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but if my body is improved by exercise, then it also stands to reason that there’s no particular kind of exercise that I must do.

[44:27] Trynette Lariba: The type of exercise you do depends on what your goals are and fitness.

[44:33] Allegra Sinclair: Okay.

[44:34] Trynette Lariba: Now, there are some people who are exercising just to maintain the body being able to move without pain, right? These are going to be those who are doing very low impact things. Your yoga, your.

[44:55] Allegra Sinclair: Walking.

[44:58] Trynette Lariba: And other just low impact type of exercises. That’s more of a maintenance. Not really trying to be hardcore. Right. Then there’s also people who are training for a particular thing. So if they’re training for a marathon, there’s people who train for obstacle courses, for example. Definitely it’s going to be more high impact. There are people who like myself, I train for life because I train for life, period. Because I never know what’s going to happen. I am a single woman. I am a mother. I live in South Florida. Anything can pop off at any time because my motto is, if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready. And so I train very rigorously, three days a week, and I do high impact, very intense type of exercises. I like to do things like I call them compound exercises. So that even in my workouts, I’m about efficiency. So compound exercises allow me to work multiple muscle groups simultaneously so I don’t have to exercise seven days a week, which I am not an advocate of exercising seven days a week, because I’m also a person that is all about your overall health. And so resting and sleeping are two things that people tend to skip as if it’s not a part of their health. And it’s very integral to you being able to do any and everything that you do, because that is when we recover. But yeah, so exercise allows your body to be able to be effective, efficient, and also allow you to do what you want to do whenever you want to. This is very important because, like I said earlier, I’m all about women being free and having freedom. So when you have a fit body, because you’re exercising consistently, right, you’re able to do whatever you want without thinking. So that means you can travel, pick up things, bend down, reach for something without having to have those other thoughts in mind. And we know those thoughts. Will I be able to get back up if I put down it?

[47:25] Allegra Sinclair: Right? I’m laughing so hard because I was watching House Hunters the other day as a child. They had a crazy looking chair. It looked like the letter S. And she got down in that chair, and I was like, See that’s pre 50 year old knees? Because when she got down there, I thought to myself, SIS, I thought the chair was cute, too. You’re going to be able to get up off the floor on camera in that dress. I actually thought and then the camera cut away, and the next thing we knew, she was standing up. But I did think that I just thought how elegant would her rise be because she went down graceful, right? Yes. So I am in that part of that equation that you talked about, where I might have a thought about, will I be able to get back up? Yes.

[48:15] Trynette Lariba: And so because you’re doing it all of the time, your body is able to do and maneuver however you want when you want it to. That’s the joy of being consistent in exercise and being disciplined, because then now it becomes your everyday lifestyle.

[48:35] Allegra Sinclair: I love that. What we’re talking about, Mary’s, the confidence that comes from a fit mind with the confidence that comes from a fit body.

[48:45] Trynette Lariba: Yes.

[48:46] Allegra Sinclair: And in my circle, we’ve been talking about sleep a lot lately. A couple of us have gotten this foolish watch. You all know, the one that tells you every hour to stand up and move for an hour and tracks how you sleep. And I think that for years, it was a badge of honor how little sleep I had gotten. Right? I traveled a lot, I worked a lot. Of hours, and I’d be like, whoo, I’m running on 4 hours sleep. It didn’t even hurt my feelings to tell people that, right? Because everybody talked like that. Now, if I was to tell my circle that I was running on four hour sleep, they’d be like, okay, full stop. What is going on with you? Right? We have heard that from you twice. Let’s get into it. Right? It’s like, if we only knew then what we know now, right? So I think your point about the timing and how you weren’t ready to have the conversation and to tell the stories that you were telling until you had this long period of time where you were actually physically healing, and then you’re like, okay, yes, life is short. I’m ready to tell what I need to tell. But I think the most compelling thing about that to me is that there’s something you can start today, right? So I often will work with people who feel like, oh, I didn’t do this thing. I messed up. So I was negotiating for a salary increase, and I didn’t ask for X, and now it’s too late.

[50:11] Trynette Lariba: Okay?

[50:11] Allegra Sinclair: So first of all, if you’re still breathing, I don’t believe it’s too late. But second of all, okay, maybe that was too late for the situation, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t follow up with that conversation in 90 days or six months or whatever, right? So there’s always something that we can do. And if we have not been loving ourselves and treating ourselves with respect and eating a diet that enables our bodies to roll like well performing machines and we haven’t been exercising consistently, what’s the best place for us to start? Tell the women what to do.

[50:41] Trynette Lariba: The first place to start is in your mind, okay? You have to because a lot of the conversation in the mind is what I haven’t done and what I can’t do and the fear of if I do something, oh my goodness, I’m going to look silly or be embarrassed. That happens a lot. So you have to first change your mindset, right? And I tell women, I am not the motivation. I’m more of a secondary motivation. Your primary motivation to exercise has to come from within. There has to be a why that you deeply believe in that’s going to move you to want to exercise. Nobody can help you to exercise, overlove you to exercise. None of it will ever make exercise stick. Even if you’re paying money. All willing is not enough to make.

[51:53] Allegra Sinclair: You stick, just hurt people’s feelings. So are you trying to tell me that I can’t make somebody else want to exercise?

[52:02] Trynette Lariba: That’s exactly what I’m saying.

[52:05] Allegra Sinclair: Motivation is an inside job.

[52:07] Trynette Lariba: It is an inside job whether we’re.

[52:09] Allegra Sinclair: Talking about exercise, changing your life, anything motivation, anything inside job. But as women, we believe that we love so hard. We believe that we can love anything off of anybody at any rate, any place, anywhere. Right? So we really do believe that we can love people into wanting stuff for themselves that they don’t want. So I need you to say it again for the people in the back. Yes. I said yes.

[52:39] Trynette Lariba: You saw it almost came out again. But you cannot love someone into exercise, okay? You can’t force anyone into telling them what will happen, because there are many people as a nurse that we have taken care of that has come through multiple times and continue to do things even though they know the facts of what will happen. So it’s not just education. People want to educate people to death. It’s not education. What it is, it has to be a reason that this person wants to really exercise. Okay? So you want to change once again, all of the things we spoke about previously to get started on the mindset. You want to do all of those, all of those before you even get started, because I want you to be able to get started, and it stays continually. I want it to be so natural to you. It’s like you’re brushing your teeth. Okay?

[53:36] Allegra Sinclair: And the work that you’re talking about, the mindset work and the why work. Right?

[53:41] Trynette Lariba: The why work. Yeah.

[53:42] Allegra Sinclair: That’s what I call it. Right in my coaching circle. I call it like the why work. So why do you want this change? Why do you want this change? Why do you want it right now? I ask why a lot. Ask any of my clients. I’ll be like, who that child loves the question Why? Because I do. Why do you want this right now? Why? Okay. Why right now? Why right now with me? Right? Because why is important. Because why outlast the initial excitement.

[54:10] Trynette Lariba: It always does.

[54:11] Allegra Sinclair: At this time of year. There’s a whole lot of people who are making promises about what they’re going to do different, and because of that time of year that people do this. But my point is why? We’ll have you continuing with your transformation in March. Absolutely. Beginning of the year, Hype is long gone. That’s why we focus on the why.

[54:30] Trynette Lariba: So what you’re saying is, if I.

[54:31] Allegra Sinclair: Have not been doing these things, that the first thing I need to do is get my mind fit. Because knowing my why and having a fit mind will then help me with the other pieces of the puzzle.

[54:43] Trynette Lariba: It most certainly will. And I just want to say, because so many women listen to your podcast, okay, and your children should not be a part of your primary why.

[55:00] Allegra Sinclair: What do you mean?

[55:02] Trynette Lariba: Say they cannot be. So many times Moms will come and say, I want to do this for my kids. I want to do this for my family. I want to be healthy for my family. That’s not it. That’s not it. I tell them, you came into the world alone and complete you did not come into the world with children and a husband, okay? That’s not how you came into the world. So why you want to exercise and change your life has to solely be caught up in you. And until you find out the answers to that question, you’ll continually start and stop, start and stop, because you won’t find anything that’s going to concrete you into this life.

[55:53] Allegra Sinclair: Are there any toes that you ain’t fixing this? You are bringing the truth bombs left and right. I just feel unworthy. Not unworthy overall. Don’t get you all twisted. I am just like this child right here. People should listen to this on repeat. This is definitely one of those episodes that people need to listen to more than one time. Wow, this has been fire. So what I would like to do I know that you have a gift for everyone, so I know we’re going to talk about that in a second. But before we get to the gift, which may help with the answer to my question, but I loved how you started off talking about forgiving yourself. Because one of the things that I see a lot in my client work is that when somebody gets an AHA about how they have been showing up or how they have been impacting themselves, there’s a lot of guilt or man, I wish I would have that you can’t do anything about because it has already happened. So is there something that you do when you need to forgive yourself so that you can move on to the next step?

[56:59] Trynette Lariba: Yes. So one of the things I like to stay very self aware, which I’m sure that’s not a surprise. So I continually have meetings and I do a lot of journaling and I do a lot of questioning of myself, a lot of introspection. And so when I do find that I have done wrong against my own self, I have to first acknowledge that I did that’s the first thing. I acknowledge my wrong. And then I say, I forgive you and I love you. And I know that when you made that decision, you weren’t in the place that you are now. You didn’t have the knowledge that you have now. You didn’t have the boundaries that you have now. You made the best decision at that time. But now that you are fully aware and acknowledge what needs to be done and how to move forward, to keep yourself in a safe place and to continually show love to yourself, this is how we’ll do better next time. So that’s how I get past that.

[58:25] Allegra Sinclair: That’s absolutely beautiful. That was absolutely beautiful. I love that. Tell me about the gift you have for my listeners because yes, there are a lot of women and some men. Hello, guys. Tell me the gift that you have for my audience just for being wise enough to listen to this particular episode.

[58:43] Trynette Lariba: Absolutely. So I have a gift. It is affirmations for the curvy woman. Any woman can listen, though, but it is affirmations to help her build self worth and self confidence.

[59:02] Allegra Sinclair: So how do these affirmations work, TriNet? Do I listen just one time?

[59:06] Trynette Lariba: Oh, absolutely not. Affirmations, I would say listen to them on repeat. You listen to the affirmations on repeat. One of the things that I like to do is I turn it on when I’m driving. I’ll turn it on during my alone time. I’ll turn it on when I am writing in my journal. Anytime that you have some free time or even if you’re washing dishes and you want to listen to positivity in your mind to help reset your mind, it helps to deprogram the thoughts that you had and reprogram them with those positive things about who you are. So definitely you want to keep this on repeat. You also may want to have a notebook next to you when you have a chance, because, like I said, not all the time will you have a chance. Just listening on repeat is good. But when you do have time to sit down to yourself, have a notebook, and write how you’re feeling, write what you’re thinking, and write where you want to go with this. Because once they become a part of you, how will you utilize these new tools? How will you utilize these new thoughts? How will that translate into new behaviors for you? What goals do you have for yourself? These are all the things that you should be thinking about, writing down and discussing with yourself to move forward. You also can use these affirmations when you’re listening to them on repeat. They may bring up things and you write them down, jot them down, speak to someone about them, right? If it triggers something in you. Speak to your coach, talk to a therapist if you need to, but definitely keep these on repeat. They’ll definitely help you.

[01:01:01] Allegra Sinclair: Absolutely glorious. I thank you so much. I was right to be excited and telling everybody about this episode even before we got down before we got down to talk. That’s right. Mother loves to be right. I was right about this topic. I was right about you. If folks want more information, they can absolutely go to Kirbyfitchix.com. This will all be in the Show Notes, but Trinity site is curvyfit chicks.com, and you can get her affirmations at Bitlycurvygift. That’s bit. Lycurvygift. Again, that will be in the Show Notes, which you can find right here on the website. I thank you so much, TriNet, for blessing my audience in this way, and I definitely feel like there is an encore in our future. So until then, I thank you so much for being here.

[01:01:52] Trynette Lariba: I thank you so kindly for this invitation to even speak with you. I’m so honored and I’m so humbled by this invitation, and I wish the best for your listeners as they continue on their journey to be full of confidence and to walk boldly and courageously into who they are.