Foreign.

S welcome to Fed by the Fruit, a podcast focused on nourishment for the mind, body and soul.

I'm kb, a spirit filled certified life and nutrition coach with a calling to disciple women who are hungry for more.

Each week we will learn who God is and what he wants for and from us through powerful testimonies, biblical truth, and so much more as we fuel our minds and bodies in ways that honor him.

Let's get fed.

Hello friends and welcome to Fed by the Fruit.

I'm so excited that you're here and I'm so excited to welcome a special guest today.

As you know, or as you're figuring out, probably the third week of every month will be an episode on how to apply biblical principles to our everyday lives.

And so I'm really excited to share this guest with you today.

I know that I'm going to glean a lot from her expertise.

Dr. Tiff is an industry leading expert in nutrition, peak performance and mindset.

She's earned numerous credentials including a Ph.D. in Health and Human Performance, an Ms.

In Sports Psychology, and certifications in NSCA Strength and Conditioning and NASM Fitness Nutrition.

Dr. Tiff founded Physique, a 501C3 to empower girls to embrace the Supergirl God created them to be.

And she's also written a book called your unique physique.

So welcome Dr. Tiff.

Thank you for being here.

Thanks so much.

I'm so excited to visit today.

Me too.

So before we dive into the book, I'd love to hear where your love for health and fitness and nutrition came from.

You and I are both a part of a group called Brand Builders where they're always telling us that we're most powerfully positioned to serve the person we once were.

So I find very often that when I'm speaking to another like fitness nutrition professional that they have struggled at some point in their life with body image, fitness, nutrition, those types of things.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and I think that's a misconception.

I think a lot of people that aren't in our industry assume we've never had any struggles with those things.

Like we've got it all figured out and we never had to worry about it.

And so I think that those of us that are willing to be vulnerable and transparent, it really helps even our clients to realize, okay, so everyone struggles even if they do this for a living.

But yeah, I think my love started, I always say I was born in cleats, in a uniform.

I literally played sports from the time I was six years old.

I Have always loved moving my body.

I still do.

And I think that's what landed me in a career.

Like you said, sports psychology was my master's degree and I coached for a long time.

My ex husband and I own gyms and fitness studios for a number of years.

So I just always found myself surrounded by fitness and sports.

My love of nutrition came a little later, I think when I stopped playing competitive soccer in college, my body started changing and I got really curious, like I can't get away with what I used to eat when I was training.

Six hours a day, two a days, preseason.

And so what started, I think, as a healthy curiosity of just needing to adjust my lifestyle and my workout schedule changed.

That same drive for perfectionism and the need to achieve and the structure I craved as an athlete just morphed itself into this unhealthy, restrictive, compulsive exercise.

20 years of dealing with that.

So, you know, I battled those demons for about two decades before I finally just said, or my body said.

I should be honest, my body said enough.

And I think that that experience, that journey, has made me a better coach.

It's made me more aware of triggers with clients and red flags that I can help walk them through.

And it's just been like God always does.

It was a battle that I never want to go through again.

But he brought me through it for a reason.

And so, yeah, what you said about brand builders, like, I do feel like I'm uniquely positioned to help anyone that's battling difficulty with their nutrition, their exercise, and creating a healthy relationship with that.

So I resonate with that so much.

And it's funny, in my own experience, God will just, he tends to bring me the people maybe that need me the most and that I can.

I just have so much empathy and understanding for what people are going through after having suffered through an eating disorder and getting that under control, because it's something that a lot of times you might, you might not believe that you ever can.

And it's like, how do I just live with this thing and you don't have to.

So I can empathize.

So after working for years with women and girls of all ages, tell me about the gap you found.

Yeah, you know, I think that a lot of high achieving women, even just women, girls, men with big dreams, they battle pressure and comparison the desire to excel and stand out.

Like, we all want to feel like we have this unique gift and we do.

But so often I see in the pursuit of that pressure, perfectionism, we lose sight of our purpose.

We Lose sight of the provider.

It's all about our goals.

It's all about more, more, better, stronger, and we sacrifice him in the process.

And we're not giving the time.

We're worshiping the things that aren't lasting.

And, you know, I bowed down to the scale and the numbers, and my body became an idol, and he was in the background.

And until I really, like you said, until I battled through that and found my.

My feet again, then I couldn't have both.

There wasn't space for both.

And that's the gap.

Wow.

Yeah.

Again, I can just.

I can just completely understand.

And even when you think you're doing all the right things and you've convinced yourself that, oh, I do all this in the name of health, I'm just healthy and I'm disciplined.

Right.

You just can convince yourself so easily.

And then one day, I don't know, sometimes it takes like, you know, something happening or just this realization that, man, I've really got my priorities mixed up and God is no longer at the top of my list of priorities.

Even when you're trying to convince yourself that, you know, I'm doing this in the name of.

Yeah, we sacrifice, I think, too, our relationships.

You know, you can't have that lifestyle and be social and go out and connect because it disrupts your workout schedule or you can't eat your food or, you know, so I think, too, we.

We give up so much in that we do.

I think I. I listen to Mind pump a lot, and they say that that last like five.

Those last five pounds are kind of like the difference between living and not living your life.

Because so much of what we do revolves around food.

And there are times when, you know, it's the.

It's the piece of cake at your child's birthday party that you're.

Either you have it and enjoy it, or you're like, oh, no, I'm gonna white knuckle through this.

Right?

And you're not gonna have that joy.

So, yeah, I see that all the time as well.

So as I said, you have a 501C3 called Physique.

And your book also has the word physique.

And as people are listening to this, they're not understanding that it is spelled F I Z E E K. So tell me why you chose that spelling as opposed to the regular word physique.

Sure.

Well, first, it's a fun play.

And since the book is for preteen girls, I kind of just wanted to make more playful spelling of the word.

But honestly, I Want to shift the focus from the physical, from the outward appearance, from the accolades and achievements to an identity built in Christ, where our values and our confidence, it's something that never changes.

So often our kiddos are building confidence on things that are temporary and they fail a test and they fall apart, their friend group changes, they decide they don't love their sport anymore, whatever activity they do and that creates this catastrophic emotional response because their identity, their worth, their value is tied to these temporary things.

And so physique is six foundational pillars.

It's faith, it's integrity, it's zeal, it's endurance, empowerment and knowledge.

So those six pillars are the foundation of, of what I believe builds a whole self that's from the inside out and not just the things we do, the clothes we wear, the activities we participate in.

And that's really the shift I want to make in people's mind that's so important.

I think, you know, there are so many of us with food issues, raising daughters, and we need a resource ourselves.

So who, I know you said preteens, but like, who is this book for exactly?

Because I can see parents, mothers using.

This book as well.

And as I'm writing it, I'm like, I need to read this book, telling myself things.

But in my mind, 9 to 13 year old girls is kind of that target audience.

It's that preteen transitional time where everything's changing.

Our body, our confidence, our friend groups are all the things.

And we're really just trying to figure out who we are in this world.

And, and like I said, I feel like it's still valid for the 40 year olds out there that are still trying to figure themselves out.

But also it's written as a curriculum.

It's written with a lot of really actionable challenges and activities.

So to your point, I think parents, I think youth group leaders, I think teachers and coaches could easily use this as a resource or a book study to take their girls through together.

And I think that would be even more powerful to just open those conversations and do that as a, a team building exercise or an opportunity to have community and connection with others in that same experience.

So that's so good.

I feel like that's something that's so needed and it actually reminds me, sometimes people ask me like, how did you, like, how do you start reading the Bible?

It's so confusing.

And I'm like, start with a kid's Bible, like that's such a good place to start.

And to your point, people my age could get something could definitely glean from a book that's written for preteens.

I mean, that's honestly probably where our disconnect started was back when we were young teenagers, you know, start when our bodies started to change.

And I think we could use some reprogramming, all of us.

So that's incredible.

Just as an aside, how do you think women of faith should approach fitness and nutrition and how should we parent our children around it in a way that honors God?

Because I know you mentioned identity.

So many of us even still just even myself, find our identity in like, for me, it was CrossFit.

Like, I. I wanted to be the best CrossFitter that ever crossfitted.

And it was like when I had a medical issue.

I had to have heart surgery about six months ago, and it took me out of CrossFit.

And honestly, as scary as it was to think that, oh my gosh, I have this thing right, One of the most difficult things for me was feeling like I had had my identity taken from me, and I had to really realize that that is not where I should be finding my identity.

That's right.

That's right.

And, you know, I wouldn't be in this industry if I didn't think that caring about our physical health and taking care of our body and paying attention to how we feed our goals and prioritize quality of nutrition, those things are important.

But you may.

You just made that point.

When it takes over, when we're sacrificing time in the word, when we're so depleted from under fueling that we can't focus on prayer time, or we're too tired to go and have community at church, or our Sunday morning workout trumps are going to Sunday school.

You know, it's when that becomes our priority over the truth and our walk with him.

And so I think teaching girls that, yes, we should have goals, we should want to get strong, we should want to have a workout community that motivates us and that makes us want to go.

And no shows up for us when we, you know, need a little bit of a pep talk or we take care of the quality of what we put in our body.

I always compare our body to a Ferrari.

It's like you're.

You're not putting regular gas in your Ferrari.

Like, we got to put premium fuel in there, and that means you got to take time and you've got to go to the grocery and you have to pay attention.

But again, it's like anything, if it's taking over and becoming the idol, becoming the focus.

And I think that's where that line has to be drawn.

So, yeah, it can be just a slippery slope.

You don't even realize it happens.

And I think intervening or giving, you know, young girls the.

This foundation and this just sort of a realization, because I think I didn't.

It was just like this kind of morphed.

It just started slow and just kind of snowballed for me.

And I think that that can happen if you don't have awareness around, you know, food and nutrition and the place it should hold in your life.

The importance of it, for sure.

But also it's not the most important thing.

That's so good.

Even now, I don't work with a lot of youth clients.

Clients on the nutrition side, more in coaching and sports psychology.

But I do have a couple of young girls that I'm working with right now that are struggling with some disordered eating patterns, and they haven't been fully diagnosed with an eating disorder.

But there's just so much emphasis on.

They have to.

They want to make all the food, and they're exploring all these recipes on Instagram because they can make healthier versions of the things that they really want to be eating.

And, you know, it's like, how do you pull them back out of that?

Because in reality, the fact that they love being in the kitchen and they want to make healthy, good food for their families, like, they're doing all the cooking for dinners.

And, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, aside from the fact that I have this fear of them going to college and they don't have a kitchen and they're in a dorm.

And now that they've gotten in this, you know, this situation where they're so fearful of not controlling the ingredients that they're eating, then it's going to be a much more difficult transition.

And so, again, to your point, it is a great foundation to establish, but you have to have some flexibility in that.

And if you.

If you can't be flexible, then it's controlling you.

You think you're in control.

That's the irony of it, right?

The more control you think you have, the less you're in control.

1,000%.

1,000%.

And it can be something where when everything else feels like it's out of your control, that's the one thing you can control.

You just, like, hold on to it.

Like, I don't know that.

That's happened to me so many times.

I've gotten myself into a cycle like that.

Tell me about the mission of your 501C3.

Sure.

So physique girl spelled the same way.

F, I, Z, E, E, K. It's just an extension of this passion project.

This book has just been a calling that God put on my heart and I want to get this book into the hands of as many girls as possible.

But the vision is bigger than that.

And every book sale is going to fund this 501c3 so that I can then run programs with the curriculum, with the resources in under resourced and underdeveloped areas of Nashville, which is where I am, but hopefully nationwide.

So the.

The mission is to build those same six pillars.

The faith, the integrity, the passion, the endurance and empowerment in all of our girls.

And the book is going to fund that.

And so I'm just excited.

Yeah, I'm really excited about the end game of this.

So again, the book, I had to have the book and the curriculum to start building the funding to actually run the programs that I want to see run.

So.

Sure.

So.

So if all of the proceeds go to the 501C3, that means it.

A book purchase could be a tax deduction.

That's correct.

Absolutely.

So depending you'll, you know, obviously work with your finance department or accountant on how much of that.

Right.

But there definitely can be some tax incentive if you buy one book or if you buy in bulk.

So.

That's right.

If you're buying for a group, I think that would be.

Yeah, yeah.

Amazing.

So the book, where can I know?

It's not out just yet.

So when does it come out and where can it be pre ordered?

Sure.

So publication date is September 30th, so closer than.

Closer than I want to imagine.

But.

But the landing page is up.

Pre orders are open.

Your unique physique.

Fizk.org is the best way to find it.

It's also on my website.

So if you go to my personal website, which is work with Dr. Tiff dot dot com, then there's also a link on there that they can find.

So.

Perfect.

And I'll link all of that in the show notes.

Awesome.

Is there.

Do you.

Are you active on social media?

Do you have an Instagram handle you'd like to share or do you prefer the website?

Sure.

Instagram is at work with Dr. Tiff and it's just D R Tiff, so same as my website, work with Dr. Tiff.

Just try to keep it easy for everybody.

That's right.

Same across the board.

Awesome.

Well, this is.

This.

I truly can see this being so helpful.

Helpful for so many people.

And I can see the vision of it just being a bigger thing where this is taught in groups, youth groups, and you know, just getting a solid foundation for these young girls so that it doesn't have to be a thing in their life, something that they struggle with throughout their.

I'm 40, gonna be 44 years old and this is still something that comes up for me.

So I think this would have been an amazing resource for me to have when I was young.

And just for moms too.

I think if you are the mom of, you know, a tween or teenage girl, this could be so valuable.

The last thing I want to ask you.

So I ask all of my guests to share a Bible verse that they love.

Do you have a favorite?

I have to say 139th Psalm, verse 14, I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Amen.

So good.

So good.

Wonderful.

That's right.

And that's actually the first verse in my book for the girls.

Oh, I love that.

Amazing that.

That is so good.

Well, I am so grateful that you were willing to share here.

I'm so excited for your book to come out.

I will, like I said, link everything in the show notes so we can all pre order the book.

And I just wish you the best of luck.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you.

Absolutely.

Okay, friends, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Fed by the Fruit.

As you know, our July memory verse is Romans 8:28.

And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

I think that Dr. Tiff's book is going to change lives.

What a blessing it will be to young girls to hopefully never have to have this struggle that I have struggled with and I know many of you have as well.

I hope that you will tune in next week.

July 28th, my 44th birthday.

Praise God.

I wasn't sure a year ago.

Well, nine months ago, seven months ago.

I don't know if I would make it to 44.

And God is good, you guys.

I can't wait to just have an episode where I get to catch up, tell you all the things that have been happening in my life.

And there's a lot.

I actually spent all day today in the emergency room.

There's a new business on the horizon for me.

I'm going on a vacation, going on a little three day getaway with jb and I'm so excited about that and I can't wait to share that with you.

So tune in next week I love you.

I'm so grateful that you're here.

Later.

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Come hungry, get fed.