00:00:06 Sana: Confession time every January. listeners, my social media feed becomes this absolute crisis. Sorry, circus of transformation. Posts like New year, new me get shredded in thirty days. Just drink this and that and watch your life change. And honestly, I am exhausted just scrolling through it. But here's what gets me. We are now in February twenty twenty six, and statistically, about eighty percent of those New year resolutions are already dead in the water. The gym memberships are getting dust. The meal prep containers are shoved in the back of the cabinet. And a lot of us are sitting here feeling like failures again. I have gone through that listeners. So today I wanted to have a different conversation, not about quick fixes or perfect ABS or whatever's trending on TikTok or Instagram this week. I want to talk about what actually works when it comes to sticking to health goals, and more importantly, why most of us are getting it so wrong. So hey everyone,

00:01:25 Sana: welcome to this, another interesting episode on the Biz Plan podcast. I'm your host Sana, as always here, and this is the show where we skip the fluff and get real about building businesses and lives that actually work. And let me tell you, my guest has a story that I think I think it's going to resonate with a lot of you. She didn't start with her fitness journey from a place of empowerment or self-love. She started from shame, from a drive through moment that stung so badly. It sparked years of obsession, disordered patterns and eventually a complete transformation in how she understands health and confidence. And today she runs more confident fitness, and her whole philosophy is built on something radical that strength isn't something you chase, it's already in you. So, listeners, please welcome Mackenzie Jacobs to B-spline Mackenzie. Welcome. And I'm really, really honored to have you here with us.

00:02:33 McKenzie Jacobs: Well thank you. That was a fabulous introduction, and I can't wait to dive deeper with your audience.

00:02:38 Sana: Totally, totally. Um, and, you know, Mackenzie, I have fallen into that, um, that shameful trap of having New Year resolutions. Took gym memberships. It never worked out. Actually never worked out. It worked out in some other kind of mysterious way. It took like one one and a half years because way back, like ten, fifteen years back, I was overweight and I have had some really serious health concerns, um, health issues. Um, because of my overweight. And, uh, the doctor just, you know, gave me, like, this serious look and this feeling of emergency that if you do not work on your weight, it's going to have a lot of problems for you, because till before that time, I never considered, you know, that overweight being being a very serious problem other than the image issue, like people either bullying me or taunting me because that's what was giving me that fear or that feeling of shame and judgment. Um, and, and that's how kind of I got, uh, I got on to the journey of losing weight. It took literally, like, more than a year, uh, for me, because I was not doing it drastically, but, um, like, exercising twice, uh, throughout the day, having a very controlled diet, of course. Um, but then, uh, yeah, this is a very, very common trap that people, especially in the beginning of the year, they fall into.

00:04:10 McKenzie Jacobs: For sure, for sure. And I, I can relate to your story as well. And as you introduced and the introduction of my fitness journey, I came from a place as well of being a little bit overweight, having doctors look over my chart twice, getting that look that you were talking about. And so I understand all those feelings, and I think that's something that empowers me as well as a trainer and online coach is I've walked that journey. I've been in my client's shoes, and I know those feelings and emotions tied behind it, and I know how much of a struggle it can be, not only feeling within your body, but within your your mind space too, and how much that permeates into your world and your relationship with yourself and with others. And it has a big impact. And I try to use that as a grounding source to when relating to my clients because I've been there. It's not fun.

00:05:10 Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. Why do you think.

00:05:13 Sana: Uh, Mackenzie, that, you know, actually, what what is the actual reason that people can't stick to their health goals? And, um, and I, I think there shouldn't be any sanitized answer, like, is it the, like, what's what's the real problem here? Because, like, everyone will have this question, why doesn't it work out?

00:05:32 McKenzie Jacobs: Um, I think that's a great question. And I'm glad we're starting off with this. So especially with the prevalence of social media and people telling you what you should do, you should do keto or you should be on ozempic, or you should do hit training or you should do high rocks. There's so much out there of telling us what we should be doing to get to X goal, but really, the best diet and workout regimen is the one that you can actually stick to because you enjoy it and it's realistic. So the problem that a lot of people have is they go from November, December, they're like, oh, I'm gonna put off my health goals and New Year's right around the corner. I'll start paying attention and being more disciplined. Then they go from having no regimen or parameters around their eating to then January one hits and it's zero to one hundred, so they go full force on the other end of it and throw the kitchen sink and everything at it. So the problem with that is you're going from not having any of those habits or regimens built up to now. You threw ten different things on your list of how you're going to meet your health and fitness goals. And that's just, quite frankly, not sustainable. So main reason that people don't stick to their goals, that they set at the beginning of the year is because they don't actually realistically think about how much time they can dedicate to their health and fitness each week. So instead of saying like, I have a busy schedule, I have kids and a family and a demanding job, I can dedicate one to two days per week to work out. They go, I'm going to join this new gym. I'm going to go to five classes of week, and then I'm going to go to Pilates and yoga, and it just becomes so overwhelming because you go from zero to one hundred. There's no ramp up period. There's no slow introduction of these new habits. So what I always recommend is to be really realistic with yourself on the weeks that life is lifing, things get chaotic, which they always do. What can you realistically dedicate to your health goals? And so that's really step one is being real with yourself and being realistic. And guess what? You only need one to two days of structured exercise to actually see results, especially in regard to strength training. You really only need one day a week. So that's all it takes, even if it's thirty minutes. So that's the biggest gap I see is people go from zero to one hundred without being real about what they can realistically dedicate to their goals. So I think if we're able to solve for that and to find a regimen that you can actually stick to and you're consistent and you start to stack those wins, you're like, oh my gosh, it's been three weeks and I've hit my one workout a week. Every single week I feel really good. I feel like maybe I can add a second one and then it starts to build from there. So once you fulfill promises to yourself, start to stack those wins. You build that confidence inside of you that you can do hard things. And then from there we can start to add some more strategies. Okay, let's add a second day of working out. Maybe let's look at our calories and maybe let's try to aim for this number of calories next week. So you want to make sure you're slowly, incrementally introducing these different strategies so that it's sustainable and that people can keep it. Because at the end of the day, that's the biggest issue in the fitness industry is consistency. And that's really what we have to solve for. And so when we preach these messages of go hard or go home or everyone has the same twenty four hours in the day, it's not helpful because you have to find what works for you, and that's going to look different for everyone. So we shouldn't be so dogmatic in how we preach health and fitness. And it's really personal to everyone and it could look different for everyone. So starting there and finding what realistically can work for you. Um.

00:09:11 Sana: And you know, rationally, Andreas, really it all makes sense, you know, because not not just fitness. Like, if anything, like, you know, if we want to have a major life change and we are preparing for it, then by default, you know, we feel that energy like, yes, from tomorrow onwards I'm going to do this, I'm going to go gym, dedicate one hour into this, or maybe from tomorrow, maybe tonight onwards, I'm, I'm going to have one hour of focused study or maybe focused work or I'm going to read this book. I'll start with this. I'll make sure that I finish this book within this week itself. Like we have that vigor, that zeal within us. Yes. But then but then we start, we start, it goes. And then slowly and gradually, or maybe sometimes instantly it like fades away. And you addressed that very, very perfectly in, in that answer. But then, you know, uh, one side of this fitness industry will say, no, it has to be hard because you have to get out, get out of your comfort zone, because that goal for you, it may look like unachievable. Like you will say that I cannot lose that amount of weight, but you have to get up, get out of your comfort zone and make sure that you go through all the pain and effort, the blood, sweat and tears and you get that result. How how would you convince those skeptics?

00:10:42 McKenzie Jacobs: That's that's really a good question. So in a sense, if you really think about it when it comes to health and fitness, it is going to be hard because we're changing habits and we have a status quo that we're used to sticking to that has kept us in our comfort zone. But what is the price of staying the same, let's say in the next six months. What is the price of having low energy? Not feeling confident, not feeling like yourself? Right. So you really have to ask yourself that question. And changing habits is hard. There's going to be friction. There's going to be challenges. And that's why I always set that expectation with my clients of what it looks like. I'm going to say, in a month, you're really going to be questioning things. Your motivation has died down. It's harder to stay consistent. You don't have that zeal, as you mentioned. And this is where we rely on those habits we've built that are sustainable. So using that discipline okay, I can hit my two workouts this week. Right. Like it's not as daunting as hitting five. So there is an element that is true to that where this will be hard for changing habits quite literally. And it takes time to build habits so that they feel more natural and they're just kind of second nature rather than having that friction. Um, I always say the first couple of steps, you're going to have to force yourself and then you'll get into a flow and a rhythm, and then things will flow and you'll feel good and you'll start enjoying it. at. So to a degree, yes, it will be hard, but it also should be enjoyable. And so if you're dreading going into your workouts, whether you're working with a trainer or you're doing group classes or doing your own workouts, if you're dreading it every single time, guess what? That's not going to stick. If you're leaving, dragging yourself out in a pool of sweat, that's not going to stick right. You might have that high where you feel really good the first month or two, and you've got the motivation and it's the new year. But then if you really look at it, you're not going to keep doing that if you don't enjoy it. So there's a balance. There's a balance. It's going to be hard because we're changing habits. But you also should be enjoying it as well to a degree. Certain certain days you may have a day where you're not feeling it. And that's okay. You still show up for yourself and fulfill that promise. You still build that confidence, but as a whole you should be enjoying it. And so I think to those people I would say yes, but yes, but there should be an element of enjoyment to it. So it is sustainable because at the end of the day, when we go zero to one hundred and it should be hard and you should be sweating and you should feel like you're about to die or pass out, like that's just not sustainable. And so that's where when preaching messages like that, that's where we get people to fall off. And I blame the fitness industry for that. So that's on us. That's our responsibility to make this welcoming and to make it so that people can stick to it. And so I urge the fitness industry to make sure that they're they're preaching the importance of balance and enjoying the process and the journey, because that's what it's all about, right? Like the destination is there, but you'll get to the destination. Let's say you do everything right. You get to your destination, you lost fifteen pounds you wanted. You're going to get there and still kind of feel like what's next, right? So it's never really about the destination. It's about the journey and enjoying it along the way.

00:13:50 Sana: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you know that you have a long road to go ahead. Um, you have a supercar. But if you just drive fast and your fuel is burnt and there's no wow, then how exactly are you going to run your car and reached your destination?

00:14:09 McKenzie Jacobs: Exactly. That's a great analogy. Yeah.

00:14:13 Sana: Um, and, uh, McKinsey, tell us about the journey behind more confident fitness. You know, like you started it from, uh, like in dorm room Instagram account. You and to an actual business, like if you can shed some light on that.

00:14:29 McKenzie Jacobs: Yeah. So it it was born. And the moldy dorm rooms of Wake Forest when I was a sophomore. And that was in the period of my life where I tried to chase being as small as possible. I wouldn't eat throughout the weeks, and then I would binge on the weekends. I would drink a lot, and it just wasn't a picture of health. And looking back, you know, everything's twenty twenty, but I needed that as a part of my journey to To understand what I don't want going forward. And yeah, so from there I started doing I don't know if you've heard of the Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide. She's Australian. She became really big, but they were kind of like body weight hit strength workouts and that kept me consistent. It challenged me. I really liked it. It was a little bit more like high intensity, I would say. It wasn't until my friend who was on the powerlifting team at LSU, she showed me the squat rack one day and because she had done a workout with me and she hated it, rightfully so. It was a lot of cardio and she showed me the squat rack. And then I was. Since that day, I just kind of was enamored by the idea of strength and barbell movements and moving weight. And so I started to notice a shift in myself where I wasn't so focused on how I looked and what my number was on the scale. But I started to focus on the number on the bar and how strong I was getting and all these muscles developing. And it was a really pivotal shift for me, not only in the sense that I became healthier and my habits started to align towards feeling myself and wanting to chase growing muscles, but more so mentally, and shifting from body dysmorphia and self-hate and trying to shrink myself to one of confidence and strength and capability and empowerment. And so it just continued to grow my love for it. I would have friends who would ask work out with me, and I would show them different things. And it wasn't until I moved to San Diego and I was just surrounded by just a love for life and fitness, and people want to go do things and explore, and it just kind of helped motivate me to explore what getting my personal training license would look like. And so I ended up doing that. And I probably shouldn't say this, but once I got my license, one of my friends came to me like a month after, and she's like, I really want to train with you. I want to start this health journey. And I was like, okay, just get a twenty four hour membership because I was a member there, and I just started kind of training her under the rug, which you're not technically supposed to do. But that was kind of my thought, my starting ground there. But, um, yeah, I just gave you the skills and knowledge and confidence that I can do this and I can help people and, um, even her, her journey and her progress, not just physically. She had had a bad car accident a couple years before, and a whole side of her body wasn't in sync with her other side and just the imbalances and seeing her journey there and just like even more so, the the mental side of it and the mental change and how confident and how she considered herself a gym rat now and like, loved coming to the gym. That was the biggest victory for me. And so that gave me a lot of momentum. And I'm like, okay, I do want to do this. Like I can be hopeful, I can change lives. And so I started to pursue working at a gym, and I happened to find, um, a local woman owned gym in South Park, San Diego, and just connected with the owner. And that's really where everything kind of took off and started personal training there and then moved into online platforms too. So yeah, it's been it's been quite a journey. And it all started from a really poor place in my own mental and physical side of things and being able to blossom and grow, and I feel like it's my superpower to be able to share that with other people, because I know what it feels like to be in that vicious cycle, and you really feel like a prisoner to it to be, to be honest. And so being able to release people from those shackles and help them feel more confident and empowered and find that inner strength that's always been there, but we're just helping it bring it out. So that's the evolution of more confident fitness. And my goal is to to spread that to as many people as I can men, women, all ages, just to help feel good in your body and feel empowered and confident.

00:18:54 Sana: Totally, totally. And, um, one very, very, something that I've also realized over the years that with something I, you know, I used to think that this is the exact reason why this entire, um, weight loss or having a good, um, you know, quote unquote figure, the exact measurements and all that stuff. Like, I was completely clouded in that kind of, um, discussions. Conversations that you have to be, like, desirable, uh, very, very much presentable. And that doesn't mean that, um, you know, you can be in any shape you want. I mean, it's not just the vague body positivity or, um, the having something which is unrealistic as per your body or as per, um, you know, because every, every human, irrespective of men and women, we all are different.

00:19:54 McKenzie Jacobs: Yeah.

00:19:56 Sana: And something that I realized is, um, that it's not about punishing your body. Like, you, you share that, you know, you didn't use to have anything during the weekdays and then used to have, like, you used to eat during the weekends, something that I also did like, you know, very strict diet for a specific month and then maybe next month if there is by chance, any occasion I used to eat like hell, you know, because my body used to give up. It didn't get any kind of, um, good food, which my brain would identify as a good food, like this happy food. And then if I, if I used to get a chance at it, I used to like gorge something like it. And yeah, that once again, you know, made me, uh, kept me when helped me like, you know, made me get back into that vicious loop, uh, that feeling of judgment, shame and then punishing once again, that. Okay, if you are having five hundred extra calories today. You have to work out for maybe two hours extra. Maybe you have to work out thrice in that entire day, or you cannot afford to eat any more food after this. And it's a very challenging spot to be in. I mean, it affects you physically, emotionally, mentally. Yes.

00:21:16 McKenzie Jacobs: Yes it does. And I think something that's important to say is you can't hate yourself into a good body. It just doesn't work. And a lot of times I see this, especially in my group fitness classes, people who are chasing that cortisol dump and they want to feel sweaty and they want to feel like they're dragging themselves out, and it's almost a form of punishment. Maybe it comes from a place of they did eat a little bit more, you know, it's the holidays, or maybe they were off track or whatever it may be. You simply cannot hate yourself into a better body. It just won't work, right. So we have to really address that first and then we can move into a more positive direction. But yeah, if you are always chasing aesthetics, you're never going to get aesthetics or health. If you chase health, you'll get both. And so that's kind of the framework that I work under with my clients. And I would say that ninety five percent of what I do is the mindset side of things, because you're right that it's such a bad cycle to be in. And it sounds like we both can relate to that. And so breaking from that and really assessing why, why am I doing these things right? Like maybe I'm binging, I do really well one month and then I'm binging. Okay, what does that say? Maybe I'm not feeding myself enough to where as soon as my body gets the opportunity to feed itself properly, it just kind of goes zero to one hundred. So maybe we should look at how much we're eating during the week or that month. Maybe we can adjust things. So I'm actually fueling my body getting the nutrients I need. So I don't have these binging episodes. And so you're able to kind of assess what's working, what's not. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you really, truly can't hate yourself into a better body. So let's use exercise as an empowering thing to fill our own cup, to provide that self love, to feed good into our bodies. And so approaching it more from that standpoint versus hating yourself into a good body because it'll never work. It may work for a short period, but then you're going to be back to where you were or in a worse spot. Yeah, yeah.

00:23:18 Sana: And, uh, I know we have a time constraint here, but I think it's a very important, um, uh, point to address, um, specifically talking about the fitness and the health industry, like, you know, these, um, like in India, I mean, Ozempic has been there in the Western world. I mean, it has made quite a wave, you know, quite a number of headlines in there. But now very gradually, like gradually, we in India also, um, specifically in the media, um, movie industry and everywhere, like, you know, celebrities are actually openly sharing about taking ozempic. Or maybe they're not openly mentioning it, but still, you know, it's kind of the rumor mills like ozempic a certain weight loss in there. And yeah, in a way, they're kind of, you know, um, flaunting it like, you know, they're trying to portray it in a very good way. But deep down, I think we know what are the harmful effects of ozempic. I mean, to begin with, it was not even meant for something, as, you know, as, uh, crucial as weight loss. Yeah. What's what's your viewpoint on all this? You know, because you are coming from an industry. So do you think that, you know, people even after still knowing the the harmful, harmful effects and everything that, you know, the, the celebrities or the people who are actually endorsing or flaunting it, they may not even believe in that. They may have, maybe because of the industry pressure or maybe the pressure of the trend. Still, they would like, you know, to go ahead with an option which can guarantee quick fix but not, you know, sustainability. Yeah. No.

00:25:04 McKenzie Jacobs: That's a great question. And I've done my due diligence of educating myself on GLP one and listening to podcasts. And I'm part of a trainer course where they specifically address GLP ones. And my opinion of it is that it can definitely be a net good. Um, if we're taking someone who has consistently struggled with their weight and they're in obesity range and they have all these poor health markers. If we're able to take them and give them something that can help reduce food noise and maybe rewire their hedonistic reward system and replace it with good habits, it can be really impactful and really powerful. What I do think is that it is overprescribed for people who are already in a healthy weight, and maybe they just want to lose an extra five pounds. I don't think it makes sense for that person. But the key thing with the GLP one that people have to remember is that if you are not strength training and you are not hitting your protein target of one gram of protein per pound of body weight, you will lose muscle and up to forty percent of the weight that you lose will be muscle. So the problem with GLP one is that they're not doing it properly. When used properly with a coach hitting protein targets proper strength training regimen, you can actually use it for good. But most people aren't using it with that. So what they're doing is they're losing a ton of weight, half of it, almost half of it being muscle. And so they are putting themselves in a metabolically worse position. So being under muscled is the worst position you can be in. You're going to have metabolic syndromes can increase your chances of cancer, heart disease everything bad. Muscle is our longevity tissue. so we have to start thinking of it as such, even with like. Cognition. Dementia. Alzheimer's. So when you lose that much muscle, not only are you opening yourself up to metabolic syndromes, but now your maintenance calories are so low because you have no muscle that you will regain that weight back as soon as you get off the glp1. So if used properly, it can be great. And I've heard really amazing stories of how it has helped people who had constant food noise and had a really poor relationship with food. They're able to focus more on their life and other things, and I think it can be really beneficial in that way. But when it's used improperly, it can put people in a worse position than when they started, unfortunately. So I absolutely recommend, if someone were to go on that journey to invest in a coach who can walk alongside you. And I think initially with my industry, people were freaked out. Trainers were like, people have this like weight loss, you know, injection and now pill and they won't need trainers anymore. But actually we're seeing that the need for trainers is heightening even more because people are losing all this weight and then they're stuck. They hit a hard plateau or they can't lose any more weight. They're under muscle, they don't feel good. And so people need trainers to help walk that road with them and do it properly so it can be good. But just like anything, it has to be done properly. And that's where people are missing the mark there.

00:28:13 Sana: Absolutely, absolutely. This is a very important, um, very crucial part of the conversation, you know, especially because you're helping people avoid that, you know, the toxic cycles that you went through. Um, and, and, um, and I believe that, um, this, this nuance is definitely going to, uh, this is something that listeners need to hear because, you know, um, it's it's a very kind of slippery slope in here because it's not just only about your health, but it's also about the psychology. Your routines like how, um, how profoundly it affects your daily activities. Um, so before we wrap up, uh, Mackenzie, if if listeners, they would like to, you know, connect with you, explore more about more confident fitness. Uh, what what are the ways they can do that?

00:29:11 McKenzie Jacobs: For sure. So I have a website more confident Fitness. Com I also have Instagram is my main social media and it's at mc f I t t y underscore j. So j you can find me on Instagram. You can go to my website and submit contact form. I also do free discovery calls so we can talk about your goals, see what you're looking for, and see if we can be a good fit of working together.

00:29:37 Sana: That's amazing. For listeners, uh, I'll make sure that all the links are there in the show notes and listeners, uh, if this conversation Resonated with you, or maybe challenged you, or it made you think differently. Please share it with someone who needs to hear, because I guarantee you are not the only one struggling with this. And thank you so much. Uh, because this was a real, authentic conversation, I feel, and I really appreciate that. You know, you brought out that realness and that vulnerability in here. Um, because, uh, it's it's it's all about building lives and businesses that actually work. Not the ones that just look good on social media.

00:30:24 Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:30:26 McKenzie Jacobs: Yes, absolutely.

00:30:28 Sana: And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode. Until next time, I'm Sana and I'll catch you in the next episode of this blend. Until then, be kind to yourself, but don't let that kindness become an excuse. You have got this, so take care and I'll meet you in the next episode. Thank you.