#14: Getting Your Body Together: How to Organize Your Health and Fitness with Manouk Vink

Getting organized goes far beyond just tidying up and putting stuff away! To get more organized and organize our lives, we must consider organizing our health and fitness. But how do we do that? This episode features a special interview with Manouk Vink, an online fitness coach, certified personal trainer, and, better yet, a nutritionist who will help you achieve a healthier lifestyle and your dream body through training and nutrition. Listen now!

Support the show! Buy me a coffee ☕😀❤️!

One-on-one coaching session with me

Follow me on Instagram

Follow Manouk Vink on Instagram

Manouk Vink  links  to  her programs, challenges, podcast, website and more

Link to give me a review on Apple Podcasts 🎙️

Follow my Facebook page

A gift for you! FREE Daily Focus List

Support the show with Bitcoin!

Credits:

Song: Green Lights
Performed By: DLP
Written by: Daniel Labate (BMI 100%)
Published by: Boss Soundstripe Productions (BMI 100%)

Song (Trailer): Epic Hybrid Trailer Music
Performed by: by 2CoolFire
Licensed by: Envato Market

Cover Photo: Angela Clifton Photography
Hair and Make-up: Casey J. Cheek
Sound Effect (curse beep) by Daniel Roberts from Pixabay

Transcript

This is the Neat Lifestyle Podcast, episode number 14. In today's episode, we have a special guest to talk about "Getting your body together: How to organize health and fitness." So, stay tuned.

Welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast. My name is Katia Mesquita. I'm a personal organization expert, an online business entrepreneur, and your host on this weekly variety show. I'm excited to bring you an extra dose of inspiration to become more organized, stay organized, and make things work better for you. My goal in this podcast is to help you achieve a more functional, harmonious, and meaningful life. I can't wait to connect with you today. Thank you so much for tuning in, and now let's begin. Hello and welcome to The Neat Lifestyle Podcast, now present in 26 countries all over the world. Thank you so much for pushing play today, for being with me, and today we have a special guest. I'm so excited. She's an online fitness coach, certified personal trainer, and nutritionist, okay? Because when it comes to getting more organized and organizing our lives in general, we need also to pay attention to our health. In this case, what I really love about her is that she integrates exercising with nutrition. And this combination of exercising, good nutrition, and rest gives us a boost in energy. So, ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to introduce you to Manouk Vink. Hi Manouk, how are you doing?

Hi, Katia. I'm doing great. I'm so glad to be here and so excited to be on your podcast today.

I'm so glad too, especially to introduce you to my audience, and I really like, really appreciate the work you do, especially combining nutrition, because what I see is that a lot of professionals out there just go into training, training, just focusing on exercise only, and they just forget about the nutrition and how important it is also to have a better performance in the result of our exercising. So Manouk, tell us a little bit more who you help and how you help.

Okay, Katia, I love that you said that about nutrition and fitness because, funnily enough, you mentioning that is so true because when I started out, I actually wanted to start out as a nutritionist because I realized when I entered the fitness space, how many personal trainers were lacking knowledge on nutrition. And really, that really got to me because that is one of the most, if not even more, I don't want to say more important, but it's one of the most important parts of achieving your fitness goals, but also of achieving a healthy lifestyle. And we all seem to be so incredibly lost when it comes to nutrition and training. So, I started out as a nutritionist and then I was already in the fitness space at the time, and people kept asking me about fitness on top of nutrition. So then I decided to combine the two and become a personal trainer as well, even though I already had experience in training, but I thought, you know, it's still the better combination.

So, it's funny that you mention that, and who I help? I help mainly women achieve their dream body through training and nutrition, and specifically strength training, because I believe that strength training is the most effective way to achieve a toned physique and lose body fat. And in combination with the right nutrition, you can achieve that. And I'm especially trying to coach women to be more empowered through fitness and through nutrition instead of feeling controlled by it because there's so much misinformation out there, there's so much conflicting information out there that we get stuck in this loop where we don't know what to do anymore, and we are trying these crazy extreme diets and extreme workouts just to achieve our dream body when in actual fact it doesn't need to be as complicated as a lot of trainers make it and coaches make it. 

And to be very honest with you, a lot of coaches and trainers, and I'm not sure about nutritionists, but I would say coaches mainly don't all share their secrets with you because they want to keep you stuck trying and relying on them to give you answers. And I want to do that differently. I want to give you all the answers so that you can finally coach yourself and achieve the body goals that you've always wanted to achieve, but be empowered by it and be in control of it rather than being controlled by it, if that makes sense.

Oh, yes, a lot. And one thing that I really like about you is that it's not only about you making a living, it's about also bringing something that can make in people's lives. And I could see an impact in me as well for what I saw about your work so far. I felt like that and pretty much that's the reason why I brought you here today. Now, I have another question. What do you like, based on your experience, what do you consider to be a person that is messy with their health and fitness?

So, I wonder if you mean messy with their health and fitness. I mean, of course, you've got different formats of that. So if you're talking about messy with their health and fitness, then I would just say someone who is not taking care of themselves. So, who doesn't prioritize their health? So, who just continues working, continues doing everything but taking care of themselves and eats quick-fix meals, doesn't focus on their nutrition, doesn't focus on taking care of their body, and I think we really underestimate how important it is to take care of our body. And I literally did a story on this recently where I put a poll up on my Instagram, and I asked, what is more important to you, money or health? And to my shock and surprise...

No, no!

Is it a hard question? 

What was the answer? How was the final?

And I was shocked, money. I was shocked, but I get it. Then someone spoke to me. I get it if you're trying to take care of your family and of people around you, and you think that you want to build an empire for yourself, I mean, who doesn't, right? But what is that empire worth if you are not healthy? If you're disintegrating, right?

Yeah, you cannot even use your money and be happy about, you know, enjoying anything without health. 

Exactly. But that's what I mean. I think people's priorities, first of all, are all external. We don't focus on ourselves. We don't like to take care of ourselves. And then also messy with your health. It can be in a different aspect where especially us women, I'm sure you have knowledge of this as well, we are just trying to find the best way to look our best. At least that's my experience where we'll try crazy things to get in shape, and unfortunately, a lot of those crazy things are going to impact our health in a negative way rather than in a positive way. And I've done it. So, I mean, I competed in a bodybuilding competition, I followed an extreme diet and an extreme workout regime, and what ended up happening was my hormones stopped functioning. And I was malnourished and obsessed with training, and to get back out of that, that was a mission, and I think there's a lot of women out there that are following crash diets, extreme workouts, and not realizing the damage they're doing to their body by doing that.

And what's the difference between being healthy and being fit?

So, yeah, so that's such a good question because I discuss that in nutrition. There's a lot to discuss there. So, a lot of us think that we're eating healthily. We think we're eating a healthy diet. We think that should be enough to get our dream body, our dream physique. But just because food is healthy does not necessarily mean it's going to help you become fit. So, if you think of chia seeds, nuts, goji berries, avocado, you name it, all these foods, they're all healthy foods, fruits, all of these things are healthy foods, but if you're eating a large amount of these healthy foods and they're high calorie, then you're going to struggle losing fat. So, will you be fitter? Maybe in some aspects, yes, but you won't necessarily look fit. 

And so there's another aspect to it where if you look at my bodybuilding competition pictures, I was extremely ripped. I had a fat percentage of 9%. So, for women, to give you a little ballpark, we're supposed to be around 20 to 25% fat, like, naturally. 9% fat is extremely low for women. And I was malnourished, but I looked fit. But was I healthy? No. All the muscles were popping out, all of them. If someone saw me walk, it was impressive. People would comment when they saw me walk. I don't wanna toot my own horn, but it was impressive. I'll share a picture with you at some point. I'll share a picture with you. And yeah, it was impressive because I looked extremely fit, I looked extremely fit, but if you looked at my health, I was not healthy.

So there's a different, you know, it's about looking fit, being fit, being healthy. There's different aspects you can look at it because being fit means that it depends what it means to you. So, being fit in my eyes is someone who can play with their kids, can be active, not run out of energy, takes good care of their body, you know, you can give them an obstacle course, they can do it. They're very well nourished, they take good care of their body. Being healthy is more, I would say for me is if you move your body and if you eat well, so fit and healthy, they overlap, but there's different explanations for the two because, like I said, if you're eating healthy foods, that doesn't necessarily mean you're eating to be fit. Does that make sense?

Yes, and about this eating habit, I can see that, of course, persistence is a very good value when we are sure that we are taking a good direction, okay? And I see that a lot of people are persisting in the mistake of eating, kind of being led, to eat "healthy food" because the label says healthy. But actually, when we see the underlying, you know, in the back of the package, we see other stuff that we can see that is not very healthy. So, how to identify if the person is persisting in the wrong direction when it comes to picking, I mean, choosing the food they're gonna eat?

So that's such a good question, Katia. But that goes into nutrition, right? So yes, a hundred percent. I even made a video on it recently where they are tricking you left, right, and center with marketing. So, I'll give you an example of, you know, protein is now a buzzword, I don't know, like a marketing word. Yes, I am pro-protein a hundred percent. It's extremely important if you want to reach your fitness goals and it's extremely important to stay healthy, I agree with that. But now they're using it on packaging. So, for example, I was in the supermarket the other day and they had a jar of protein peanut butter, and then they had a jar of regular peanut butter. And the protein peanut butter was three times as expensive as the regular peanut butter. And just for [beep] and giggles, excuse my French, I decided to take a look at the back of the label, and I was like, I wonder if it's actually high protein.

And when I looked at the back of the label, to my surprise, I realized that the regular peanut butter was actually higher in protein than the protein peanut butter. So they are tricking you everywhere just to get you to spend more and to buy certain products. So going back to the healthy aspect of that, they name something, I don't know what the rules are like in the US, I think they are with marketing, but in some countries it's stricter than in other countries that you can't label something unless it actually has a certain ingredient in it. So, for example, with [beep], they can't say they're potato chips because, apparently, this is something I've seen, I don't know if it's correct. So we need to fact-check that, but they can't put potato chips on [beep] because apparently there's not even potato.

Oh

Yeah.

Wow. 

So, the rules, that's something, that's, you know, an important factor. And I think how you can be sure that you're eating healthy and you're not persisting in the wrong direction is get clear on nutrition. So start understanding it and start reading labels. You wanna make sure that the ingredients in a food product are as natural as they can be. I'm never someone that says you can't sometimes eat something processed. So, like, if you love Oreos, have an Oreo once in a while, right? But you know that that's maybe not the healthiest food to pick, but it will give you that, you know, it will kill that craving that you have, and you should be able to enjoy these things. But if you wanna make sure something is healthy, you gotta read the labels. You gotta be sure that you know what you're putting into your body. And that is something that I also tackle in my membership. I teach people to be able to read labels and to understand their nutrition because I— 

I really—Go ahead.

No, sorry, I feel like I'm going on a tangent. But I feel passionate about that stuff. 

Yes, because what I noticed, I really like to read the labels, and I see that a lot of things that are supposed to be salty, they have a lot of sugar. If you have some tomato sauce, I really check because I prefer to use those ones that don't have sugar. And it's so unnecessary.

It is.

And I see high levels of sugar, so I check between two different brands. Even some, like, I give preference to organic food. It doesn't mean that I only eat organic food because sometimes they are not available, but I just give preference as much as I can, and I like to eat, like less sugared, like, I prefer unsweetened, less sugar, and I compare the labels to see. Even my son likes to do that. When he wants a cookie, he compares the level of sugar, and it's amazing how food can have so high levels of sugar, and I dunno, it's just unnecessary.

START HERE:

It is, and I think it's so good that you're doing that. And a lot of people don't even know how to read, like, a label or what to look for. But yeah, a hundred percent. So my boyfriend, he does not eat sugar because he is hyperglycemic. So he gets migraines from it, he gets a bad response from it. So, even then, I'm already more aware. I already am for myself. If I eat a bit of sugar, it's not gonna kill me. But for him, it has a big effect. That's another aspect: he always panics because sometimes a product will say that it has sugar in it, but it could be from a natural source. You gotta really check if there's sugar added to the product. And like you said, in a lot of products, they add sugar that it's not necessary. So why would you have it in tomato sauce, for example?

Or even I heard that they wash, you know, baby carrots, they wash it in sugar water, which adds sugar. But I always check. So you can look at the label and read the label and see how much sugar is in the products, but then if you read for example, an apple has sugar naturally, so you've got to make sure that if it's added sugar or not. And so there you kind of go into that discussion for healthy slash fit because honey is sugar, it's just a more natural source of sugar. So honey is healthier, but if you want to achieve your fitness goals, honey or regular sugar, you know—

It's still sugar.

It's still sugar. So I would still go for the honey because it's more natural. But when it comes to calories and achieving your goals, if you have a table— Okay, tablespoon is maybe a lot, but a teaspoon of honey or a teaspoon of sugar, you know, in that regard, how much difference does it really make? But then you go into that healthy slash fit debate. So it's a discussion of all of these things. And I would still vouch for the more natural sugars because corn syrups and all these additives and things like that are obviously— it's better to not have all that and to focus more on, like, sugars from dates, fruits and honey, and agave syrup. I don't know, agave, I never know how to say that, but those are always the better option, right? But it's still, at the end of the day, sugar.

And how do you find motivation to have more consistency and to exercise?

Okay, so I love this question because everybody was like, how are you always motivated? The answer is I'm not.

Yeah, I see people doing New Year's resolution. They start, okay, this year I'm gonna get there. I do have some exercises for consistency for being persistent, but I want to know about your opinion about consistency and, you know, doing exercise.

So yeah, listen, so this is the big question. How do you stay motivated all the time? I literally— I don't. Because this morning I wanted to go, I told myself: I'm gonna go exercise. I woke up, I didn't want to go. But it's a difference between them not going and going anyways. So it's all about commitment, Katia. It's all about, like, are you committed to yourself to make that change? Are you committed to your body to give it the exercise that it needs? And of course, you've gotta find out, like, if you're really sick or you're really unwell, then maybe you should take a day off. But, you know, it's about following through because if we always rely on motivation, you're not going to get anywhere. And so what you say with the first, the New Year's resolution, people are motivated because it's the start of something new, and the problem with that is that we then go all in for a month, right? Because we're motivated. 

So we're motivated, we're going to do it this month, and then, instead of building it up slowly and changing habits gradually, we go all in. So, 1st of January or second, depending if you're recovering from New Year's Eve, you know, you hit the gym. You sell yourself: I'm going to go four times a week, five times a week. And then you can sustain that for maybe two or three weeks, and then you're like, I can't do this anymore. And that's because— and you don't want to do it anymore. It's because you're setting unrealistic goals for yourself and for your lifestyle that you can't stick to sustainably. So, it's about making small habit changes and gradually adding them in. So, whether that's now or the 1st of January, that shouldn't make a difference. It's about making a decision, committing to that decision, and following through. 

So, I heard your podcast also about that be, do, what was it? "Be, do, have," right?

Yes, the "Be, do, have" concept. It was in episode number three of The Neat Lifestyle podcast.

Yeah, so I love that because it's true. Like, if you think about— I do this with my clients as well, I ask them, if you think of the version of yourself that you want to be, what would that person do? What would she do on a daily basis? What steps can you start taking today to get a step closer to that person? And so we actually tackle this in my— I do a free challenge, so yeah, you can join the free challenge and then we tackle five things, where you get a step closer to achieving your dream body, to getting in shape. And one of these things that we tackle is consistency slash motivation because everybody thinks that you need to be motivated every time. But if you rely on that, are you motivated to work every day? Are you motivated to, you know, to do any of your tasks every day, all the time? Of course not. And I'm not either.

I really dread going to the gym sometimes it's part of my lifestyle. I see it as brushing my teeth. It's part of what I do in the day, and I feel so much better for it when I've done it, but it doesn't mean that tomorrow when you decide to go, so over the 1st of January you decide to change your life, it's going to instantly happen and it's going to be easy. That's why it's sometimes better to take a smaller step. So start with one thing, like, tell yourself you're going to increase your step count or start with going to the gym one time a week. If that's successful, give yourself a pat on the back and then try to add in another day or try to add in something you can change in your nutrition, instead of doing it all in one go. You're setting yourself up for failure.

Got it. And regarding organizing our nutrition and exercising schedule, what do you consider to be a good plan?

So, that kind of links into the consistency, commitment discussion, right? And taking small steps because yes, you should organize your health and your fitness and do all of it because it needs to be something that can fit into your life. Because if it's something that is so outrageous and it's not your lifestyle, and it's such a night and day difference, then it's going to be difficult, right? So, I always advise my clients, and we even tackle this in my challenge as well. When it comes to training, for example, I tell them that they should book an appointment, a meeting with themselves as many times a week as they think they actually can make. So for you and me right now, Katia, making this appointment to do a podcast, it's something that you schedule into your calendar, and you commit that time to doing this podcast and to meeting with you.

Yes.

Yes. And it seems easy to do that, but for some reason it's very hard for us to schedule some time for ourselves to work out. So, I always tell them as if it's a meeting with yourself, you should schedule in an appointment in the week that you know for a fact that you can make into your calendar and book as many sessions as you know for a fact that you can make. So, don't overestimate it because if you think you can then make four times a week and you actually can't in your daily life, then take a step back and start with one or two times a week and schedule that in, become successful at those days and give yourself a win when you make it to the gym, the times and days that you've scheduled in with yourself. And then build from there. Because you need to make sure that you can commit that time to yourself, and you need to set aside time for yourself to do that as well.

And then, when it comes to nutrition, that can go into so many directions because when you say organize your health and your nutrition, you need to understand, first of all, where are you at right now, and I think with training as well, but with nutrition, it's a bit more complicated because they're both a mental game, but for some reason I feel nutrition is mentally more difficult because it's so much easier to grab what you're used to than to change your diet completely. So, when it comes to nutrition, I think it's very important to jot down or to note down what do you eat right now. Get an overview of what you're eating at the moment and preferably track it somewhere. So get a tracker app and track what you're eating right now, get an idea of where you're at, and then from there you make changes.

And the biggest change that I always advise people to make, yes, of course, eat the least amount of processed foods, but start with just increasing your protein intake. Just start there, and then you can go from there. And it's personal for everybody, but I always find it very important when I work with someone new that I first take a look at what they're doing right now so that we can make small changes from what they're doing right now so that they can make that change more easily than if I give them a completely different diet that they know they won't be able to stick to. And I think prep yourself for that. So, check where you're at, figure out how much protein you're eating, go to the grocery store, get the things that you think are good and healthy and high in protein. Get that into your house and get rid of the processed foods in your house as much as you can, and then just make a small change as you go. I think that's the best way to start.

And what about carbs? 

Yes, carbs is always such a big question. So we love to demonize certain foods, right? That's our favorite thing. We love to take one food group and demonize it. So, I'm not a fan of that. I think, you know, when you demonize a certain food, you put them in a category of good or bad. And once you put them in a category of good or bad, that's when you start creating an unhealthy relationship with them. Because if you put the carbs in the category "bad," then you're going to try and avoid them, and you're going to avoid them to the point where at some point you might break and you're going to start binging on it, right? Because you've restricted yourself from something for so long, and you crave it. So, I'm not a fan of restricting yourself from certain food groups because it creates a bre—

Just having moderation, right? 

Moderation. And it's all— what it comes down to, Katia, is calories. Calories in, calories out. And I know so many people say that, but you've got to get a clear idea of where you're at because that can be so much more nuanced. And I can go into, like, so many topics when I'm talking about this. My brain is already going into so many different directions because I was eating in an extremely low-calorie diet when I was in my bodybuilding competition. And people believe that you go into starvation mode, but starvation mode is not a thing. It does not exist. What does happen, though, is that your metabolism slows down. So when you're talking about calories in, calories out, it gets more complex depending on where you are. So you gotta figure out where you are with your calories at the moment, and your activity levels are, and see, and that's what I do in my membership and in my programs. I coach you through that. I help you figure out where you're at, what you need to do, and I give you all the tools to figure this all out. So, when—

Yeah, and I want to be in this membership.

Yes, you should come join! 

Count me in!

You should come join. So that's the thing, when we go back to the carb thing, it's all about that. And then there's always a fan of saying proteins are the most important, and then you balance out the fats and carbs depending on what works best for you. 

Alright, Manouk, thank you so much for taking the time to come here today and share a little bit of your expertise. I really like it. And if people want to reach out to you, how do they find you, and where you hang out? 

So I am very active on Instagram, so you can just— it's just difficult to spell for some people that don't know my name.

I can put the link on the show notes. 

Okay, so that would be awesome. But my Instagram handle is @manoukvink. So my name is spelled "MAN" and then "OUK." And then "VINK" is my full name. So you can find me on Instagram. I have recently released my own podcast so that I can dive deep into all these topics. It's— 

I listened! 

Yes? Did you like it?

Yes, really.

Yay! It's called Nouk's Fitness Podcast. So basically my handle is always with "Nouk's". I like the play on word like nuke, like an explosion. Do you understand? So, Nouk's Fitness Podcast, and then you can join my challenge and get an idea and a taste of what my coaching style is like, and we tackle all these questions, Katia, that you're literally asking in this podcast right now and more in this challenge to get you set up to transform your body. And you can find it on my website, academy.nouksfitness.com/join-challenge. I'm hoping Katia will also add it in the show notes. 

Yes, I'll do.

And there you can get a taste of all the coaching that I do, and I do it in bite-sized coaching sessions so that it doesn't take up too much of your time because I know how busy everybody is, but it gives you all the valuable information to get started and start transforming your body and lose the stubborn fat and tone up your body and make those important changes to be a fitter, healthier, stronger version of yourself. 

Okay, great. And any final thoughts? Any books that you recommend? 

I'm so bad with books, guys. 

That's a shame. 

I know. It's so bad. I—

Listen, I'm gonna tell you something. Audiobook versions. You can listen while you exercise, okay? So, next time, consider.

I just get lost in articles, honestly. And listening to podcasts and researching myself. That's my issue. I should read more books. 

Okay. 

I am just in the gym all the time. I can't help it. 

Anyway, that was amazing. Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Katia. 

And remember, if you have goals in life and if you feel like running circles, working, working and getting nowhere, let's start fixing that by getting more organized for more significant achievements. Getting more organized goes far beyond just tidying up and putting stuff away. You gotta consider other aspects and organize your life with a holistic approach. And you can do that by joining one of my coaching programs or by booking one-on-one coaching sessions with me. Just head over to www.neatlifestyle.com/programs or click on the link in the show notes of this episode. Last week, I did a giveaway of a coaching session with me, and I'm happy to announce the winner. It's you, Demi Rose, based in the Caribbean. Congratulations! And we will DM you all the details on Instagram, okay? And if you also want to do Demi Rose and have a chance to win a one-on-one coaching session with me, follow me and shoot me a DM on Instagram with a brief description of your struggle, and what you do, and who you are. I can't wait to announce the next winner. Once again, thank you so much for listening, I'm Katia Mesquita, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you liked what you heard today, be sure to share it with those you care about so they can also benefit from it. If you aren't already following me on social media, do so by clicking on the link on the show notes or simply by visiting my website at neatlifestyle.com. I appreciate you so much. I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you in the next episode of The Neat Lifestyle Podcast.