Shannon: [00:00:00] I’m Shannon.
Mona Lisa: And I’m Lisa, and you’re listening
Shannon: to Blacktivities
Mona Lisa: A Celebration of all things black,
Shannon: Black culture, black history, black perspectives,
Mona Lisa: and black panache.
Shannon: Celebrating our blackness doesn’t mean exclusion.
Mona Lisa: Everybody’s invited, but you gotta come in and have a seat. So let the blacktivities begin.
Shannon:
Hello and welcome to Blacktivities. This is our black health episode. I am Shannon and my co-host is the lovely Mona Lisa. Yo yo. And we have some guests here today. Uh, Bella and IB, they are founders of Black Fit Love, and they are owners of the Fitted Network of Wellness. Welcome guys. Can y’all tell us a little bit about what y’all do for the people?
Hey, hey.
IB: What’s up? [00:01:00] What’s up? What’s going on y’all? Thank you for having us. Um. We are honored and we appreciate you, you know, asking us to join to talk about black health, um, because that’s something that we are passionate about. We are, um, owners of fitted network of wellness and we also own a weight loss firm by the name of Fitted University, and we help busy professionals lose weight with ease and keep it off forever.
Without giving up the foods that you love or spending hours at the gym, that’s what we do. That’s what we does. So
Mona Lisa: welcome guys. Welcome. I’m glad to have some professionals on here. Let me share a little story with you guys. This episode is about, uh, black health and, um, I’m gonna share this story with y’all and I just wanna get y’all opinion on this, but, so I used to be 300 pounds.
Um, I did get, uh, some surgery to assist me. It was a tool, the gastric bypass, and I [00:02:00] end up losing 160 pounds in that little period. I was big on making sure I was setting great examples for my children because I didn’t want them to go through the same thing that I went through. So I was like, You know what?
If I’m gonna go running, I’m taking them with me. And for a while we did. , Uh, obviously life changes. Things happen to where I kind of got away from being active and being healthy, and I kind of fell off. When I moved from New York back to Georgia, I decided I gotta pick up the pieces. I had gained a little weight.
I was like, I, I gotta, you know, get back on the ball. So I was looked at my children, I said, You know what? We’re gonna go walking and then we’re gonna go running. And they was like, Really? It’s been a while. I was like, We can do this. We got. So we get the going down shoe art. Shoe art. For the people that don’t know, this is the little street that we have here in Dalton, Georgia.
We’re doing good. We’re walking, we [00:03:00] running, walking, running, You know? Then all of a sudden my chest started hurting and all. It’s like, okay, hold on, but I gotta be big and bad cuz my kids right here. Right? Like, can’t show them that I was hurting. Right. . So all of a sudden I just can’t breathe. I just laid it down on the sidewalk.
I know the car is driving, but I know they were looking like, what in the world’s going on. My kids is like, Are you okay? I’m like, Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. So my oldest at the time, she, uh, she was 17 at the time. She went running back to go get the car to, you know, come me up. Cause I couldn’t go back. But I was just sitting there like, I’m Finn die.
Y’all . I can’t breathe. I’m I’m Finn die. My kids finna see me go. I’m Finn go. I’m gonna go. At least God know my heart. I was trying to teach them something, you know what I’m saying? Like something positive, like you gotta exercise. But I damn near diet on shoe bar, y’all . That is very important. To me, to making sure I’m setting a good [00:04:00] example.
And even though it’s hard growing up, I didn’t have someone talking to me about exercising. I didn’t have anyone talking to me about the importance of eating healthy, breaking down calories and how to read and exactly like read that label that’s on the back of all of this food that we do buy, um, processed food that we do buy that isn’t good for us.
We’re built and we’re taught on. Cooking unhealthy shit. So that’s something that I did try to change when it came to my children. Even now, like people are surprised because my 17 year old baby, she makes the best Brussels sprout saute, brussel spro. Oh my God. So it all comes from when how you grow up.
And unfortunately not all of us, especially black community, we get that to where we’re taught.
Bella: Agreed. That’s awesome.
Mona Lisa: But yeah, I almost died. , I just wanna say that I almost died, but I’m here to be with you guys [00:05:00] today. .
IB: I was about to say, you listen, you, you lived, you lived to breathe another day. There we go.
We, I’m putting that on the shirt. Yeah. Mean, So, so we, we here now, right? Um, the beautiful part is just the idea that you, you are being proactive, especially with your. And there’s one thing that you mentioned that I think that in the black community, we don’t give enough clout for us to even be able to move forward and change, and that’s the idea that you understand.
your, the, the way you move right now and the decisions that you make made today were a result of what you were taught. Not this resistant idea or excuse, let’s just call it what it is. That, Right, Right. Right’s genetically inclined, You know what I’m saying? So in the black community, that is, um, where we haven’t gotten to this part yet, but that is a myth.
The idea. We were born to be this way. We were born to be fat. We were born to be overweight. We were born to be, [00:06:00] uh, uh, unhealthy. It’s in our genetics.
Shannon: Ho. Hold that thought, ib. Okay. For sure. I’m gonna transition real quick to s facts and we’ll talk about. Why we think those things for sure.
Our African ancestors already had their own native foods and recipes when they were brought to America during the slave trade. You know, cuz we had our own civilizations and cultures in Africa. Some enslaves even took some of the native African crops with them that the slaves planted when they got to America.
Rice, okra, pork and greens were staples in their recipes. Slaves were pretty much given scraps, undesirable parts of meat, and some starches like rice, sweet potatoes, corn meal, and a little bit of molasses. No veggies, [00:07:00] no dairy, no fruit. So black folks did what we always do. They said, You can kiss my black panache, sprinkled that thing on it and created a feast.
We grew our own veggies. We took them pig parts and made ribs, chitlins pig. Fat back ham hawks and hog MAs. We developed seasoning combos to make it all taste better. We bowled them greens and pork fat and soaked up all the juices with our cornbread, which is how they used to do it in the motherland. We season the meat with hot red peppers in vinegar, the base of the barbecue sauce that we and white folks alike love to this day.
You know, we find any excuse for a cookout. It is said that meat curing techniques came from our ancestors. We turned their trash into what would become comfort food and define southern [00:08:00] cuisine. We continued eating these things after slavery because most of us still couldn’t afford the best cuts and.
And it became a cultural thing during reconstruction, as we celebrated in our churches every week, The great migration when lots of black folks moved out of the South, caused those foods to be enjoyed by people all over the country and began to mesh with other cultural foods when people started putting their own spin on it, the term soul food was spawned in the 1960.
But here’s the problem. Those comfort foods are often cooked with things that are not the healthiest. These culinary traditions, lack of access to buy or the money to pay for healthier food options has led to health issues and the black community. And as part of the reason for generation after generation of high blood pressure, eye cholesterol, diabetes.
[00:09:00] And other diseases running in a lot of our families today, and that’s SACS facts.
As black people, what do you guys think should be our main focus when it comes to being healthy?
Mona Lisa: Mental health?
IB: Yes, mental health is a part of it, but simp. Uh, even more simple than that. Weight management. Hmm. Weight management should be our number one priority. And, and, and here, here’s why we like to say, bring the data, not the drama, right?
So, um, even in our, uh, plight to like try to figure out what route we should take when it comes to our health and helping people. We realize that the number one way we can do that help people be [00:10:00] healthier is by losing weight and weight management. It’s as simple as that. Uh, studies show that 10%, every 10% of weight that you lose drastically increases, uh, your aesthetics and your appearance and your confidence.
It drastically decreases your for chronic disease. I can say it. You get what I’m saying, . So, um, that is the, that is the number one. And it also drastically de decreases the consequence that comes along with chronic disease. So what I mean by that is this someone that has heart disease. If you were to lower your weight, it drastically increases your chances of survival if you were to have a heart attack.
The number one way to be healthier is through weight management. The stats. The data shows that. So I think that we need to hold more value in that when it comes to our community. So weight management is the number one and easiest approach to take.
Mona Lisa: I think the reason why I said mental health first is because I feel like that’s the starting point when it comes to, like you said, weight management and [00:11:00] just, you know, keeping up with yourself.
Cuz men, I’m gonna be honest with you personally, mentally. I mean, I have issues just like anyone else, and with those issues, the feelings and possibly depression, it caused me to eat. It caused me to do things that you know aren’t healthy, which contribute to me gaining weight and not. You know, presenting the right example to my children.
So that’s why I want to go with mental health first, because obviously we know that mental health among the black community, especially black men, is something that is just like not talked about often, or not taken seriously.
Shannon: I hear you guys say all the time that you’re not gonna lose the weight if you’re not in the right mental space.
And I’ve experienced that personally. So, um, do you wanna talk a little bit about. Mental
Bella: space is a big deal because whatever you believe is your reality. So if you start telling yourself every morning when you’re looking [00:12:00] in the mirror that you hate the way you look, that you can’t, it’s hard to do, to lose weight that you know you’re supposed to be big because your mom is and your aunties are, that you are.
You know, inclined to this unhealthy space that you’re in, then no matter what you do, you are not gonna get there. Um, so funny story is we haven’t played with an Oculus, and yesterday our friend had a Oculus. And when you, when you put the, the i things on your whole reality, it changes. And so whatever you think is kind of like your Oculus mm-hmm.
where you put your Oculus on, you will see what you feel like. Is gonna be the space where you would like to be. Um, and so it’s, you can’t change anything from a outside of you. You can only change it from the inside. And so from the inside out, it’s [00:13:00] easy. The body responds to whatever that it feels like mentally it’s is there, but again, you can’t, you can’t change it from the other side.
So I know a lot. A lot of people when they go to try to change something, it’s like, what can I, what can I buy? What products can I put on my skin? Mm-hmm. , uh, can I get a bbl? Can I get a, you know, all those things. Right. And then what happens is what you gonna do? You gonna go back to eating, thinking, doing the same things, and then be upset.
Like, why didn’t this change? But change happens in your perception of what your life is and, and what it’s gonna be, and. And so yeah, both of those things is, are what we do mostly is we got you on the change. It’ll happen, but do you believe it? Do you see it? Do you understand what kind of things that you want in your life?
You know, all those things are really, really important.
IB: And, um, we, we also have a saying, so, so actually [00:14:00] Moda you, you are, you are correct. You know, um, definitely, uh, to, to a certain extent. Cause we actually even said in our program that. You most people are stuck not because of what they do, but because of what and how they think.
Most people are stuck not because of what they do, but because of how and what they think. So, um, uh, to a certain extent you are definitely correct when it comes to, uh, mental health and, um, your mindset and the way that you think dictating your, your health and where your, what steps you would. Um, to, uh, improve your
Shannon: health?
Yeah. I actually, before I started working with you guys, I, um, fell into like big stressful times and then I started eating and gaining stress, weight, and then I would look at myself in the mirror and not recognize who I was and then, That would make me more [00:15:00] depressed. And then I would go eat some more and feel bad.
And it was like a whole cycle.
Mona Lisa: Ooh, I’m gonna start using that. Stress weight. Mm-hmm. stress, weight. Yeah. . . That’s
Bella: a great one. It is. Um, that’s what, um, IB and uh, another one of our partners in our network we’re talking about on Thursdays, they have a, a live discussion and so they were kind of looking up some things about how.
It’s, What did you guys say? It’s a cycle. Yeah, it’s a cycle, but it’s trauma. Mm-hmm. trauma. Yeah. Cause what happens is we have people who talk to us and they tell us stuff like, I don’t really eat that much. And you’re like, Okay, well how did you get to be 300 pounds? What do you mean? Because the only thing that we know is that energy intake is how you are going to.
Multiply your fat cells. If you don’t eat, you’re not gonna gain weight. So what do you [00:16:00] mean by that? When we start digging and digging and digging, it’s an idea. They’re totally disassociated with how much they ate, how frequently they ate. That’s like gone in their mind because of a traumatic event. So what did
IB: you call it?
It’s called cognitive disassociation. Mm, cognitive
Bella: disassociation.
IB: So you disassociate. Because of trauma. You know what I’m saying? So, um, so a lot of times, uh, food, uh, again, even in our community is associated with trauma. So, uh, there are things that you’re going through and you use food to cope. So because it is a form of a coping mechanism or you associated with trauma, you then disassociate from.
Uh, simply because you, um, you, you forget. It’s almost like, it’s almost like, uh, when let’s, let’s use an extreme situation, like in the case of like rape or something like that. A lot of times it’s difficult for someone that has gone through rape when you’re asking them what happened. [00:17:00] It’s literally like they forgot.
They know that something happened, but it’s difficult for them to tell the details. And in many situations they, they block it out. They block out the details. So it’s difficult to get out of them exactly what happened because of cognitive disassociation, They’ve disassociated from the event. So because we use food as a way to cope with our traumas, we disassociate from the reality.
You’re still eating too much. You know what I’m saying? Because they don’t think that they are, because they’ve disassociated from the event of, I was stressed, so I ate 3000 calories in one sitting. They completely forget that. Mm-hmm. all because they wanna forget the trauma. They wanna forget the trauma as a whole.
And the food is a part of the trauma
Bella: and the food is really like, um, because it’s so available all the time. You don’t even have to go anywhere. You can order it. I mean, it’s always in your face. Um, and you really use it as a vacation. I wanna take a mental vacation. I don’t wanna be here, I don’t wanna [00:18:00] look like this.
I don’t wanna have these feelings or these thoughts, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna tap out. And, um, I would experience this. And the only way like we’ve developed our program is because of what we. Experienced and I would literally eat black out. Like I wouldn’t remember anything. I would just be in my own world and then I would snap out of it when I get like physical pain.
Hmm. If my stomach was really, really hurting or I was actually feeling the inflammation come up in my, in my neck and in my, in my eyeballs and in my, in my body, my stomach. You know what I mean? I started feeling like I was paralyzing myself, so I couldn’t do anything but sleep afterwards. That’s how much I ate or that’s how much I did, I, I was inactive.
Um, so. That’s happened. That happens and, and we completely understand that you seeing yourself in the mirror after you just did that is more trauma. So you just start compounding the trauma of, Now I gotta [00:19:00] go to a family reunion, but I look like this. Trauma. Now I gotta go on an airplane. We have client that went on an airplane and the steward has asked her if she wanted a, an extra connection or to purchase another seat cuz she was too big just in front of everybody.
More trauma. So you start going through these things and, and our history of being, um, you know, brown people, there’s a lot of trauma in there that people use food for. So we completely understand that. But we take, we teach you how to come out of. I wanna share
Mona Lisa: this with y’all. Um, I know this is very dangerous, but when you was talking about, you know, overweight people flying, um, there, when I was overweight, there was a situation where I was flying.
And for that embarrassment alone, um, I didn’t wanna ask for an extended seat. and I end up flying with just holding it. And I know that that is very bad. That’s very bad. God forbid. Thank God [00:20:00] nothing happened. But it’s just like that feeling that when you, when you are overweight how you’re felt, or the embarrassment that you do receive sometimes is it’s, it kind of hinders the way that you are thinking.
So instead of you actually just taking it head on, face to face, you know the issue face to face, you just eat. Or you ignore it or you just find food or find something to pacify the way you’re feeling. Even growing up as a kid, um, being overweight, even though my mom didn’t know she worked a lot, but there were adults that were around me, that made me feel some type of way, they treated me differently because I was overweight.
And again, there was nobody talking to me about exercising. And if there was, they were mean. So that’s another thing where you grow up to where, again, you don’t have the knowledge, but it’s still that trauma is building, compounding, like you said, to where it’s even worse when you’re an adult and then time you, you know, become that adult.
It’s, it’s so much to, to unravel that it’s, it’s [00:21:00] hard to even find the motivation to get to that point to where you are officially healthy. For sure.
Shannon: Guys, what myths. or beliefs do you think the black community has about
Mona Lisa: health and eating? Ginger heals it all. Boom. ,
Bella: ginger and salty crackers. Salt. Salt crackers.
Right,
Mona Lisa: right. And tuss Tutus. Fall down the steps and break your ankle. Your granny rub tuss on your.
Bella: And go lay down. Yeah.
Mona Lisa: And go lay down. You bust your head open if y’all fall and bust your head open. What did that tell y’all? The first thing I say is don’t go to sleep. Black community. Get in there and lay down.
Take some drinks of water. Go lay down.
IB: Now that, that ginger big well for show to, to, to this day even, uh, even pops. Uh, Shannon, your, your daddy, his stomach. That that man gonna grab that ginger man gonna grab [00:22:00] that ginger reel. But yeah, that, that, that’s definitely that. It’s a, it’s a funny one, but that’s definitely still a, a, a myth of today cause your stomach hurt, but then you go grab more sugar, carbonated sugar
You get what I’m saying? So
Mona Lisa: that’s definitely, I’m not listening ginger heels off, but go.
IB: Right, But, but look, the mind is a powerful thing. So look, just talk about mental health. If you, if you think it, then, so it shall be .
Bella: I think another myth is this thing that, um, when you get older as a woman, that you’re supposed to be thick. Like thick is a thing. Like thick isn’t really. A real thing. It’s like somebody made up that title cuz they just tired of feeling bad about being bigger.
Mm-hmm. like, now it’s like a prideful, like, I’m, I’m just thick. Mm-hmm. , No. Here, here like big
IB: bones. But you took Right. I about to say that, that that’s the, that’s probably the [00:23:00] biggest one. I’m supposed to be big bone.
Bella: I’m big bone like my, my family. All my family and my family’s big
IB: bones for everybody out there, listen.
Big bones don’t exist. If you decomposed right now, it don’t matter if you 400 pounds or 140 pounds once. All that flesh Deco poses your bones are pretty much the same size. Now they vary in density and in length, right? So Sha Bones gonna be longer than mine. You know, the, as far as the girth and the size of them is not gonna be that much difference when it comes to weight.
Mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? Like shas bones don’t play a big role in how much he weighs. They just support all of his weight. Right. You get what I’m saying. But his bones don’t weigh 400 pounds.
Mona Lisa: Right. And another thing too, to kind of reverse what y’all talking about is when people are smaller, , they’re made feel bad because they are smaller.
For instance, my oldest, when she, [00:24:00] um, before she left and went to college, you know, she, she was slim. She was about 1 45. Um, my children are very athletic. They play sports, but when Covid hit, she did gain a little weight to where she was sticker, and then when she left and went to college. Now keep in mind, she’s on her own now.
She has, you know, she has her own place. And she’s a college student and she work, so she’s not gonna be able to be at home and eat on a regular basis where I could feed her three times a day and all that. So she lost weight and whenever she would come home, even to this day, people are like, She losing too much weight.
Something going on with her. And I’m like, She, She’s sick. Yeah, she’s sick. Something wrong with her. She’s. . And then is she on drugs? No, she ain’t on drugs. Right. . Right, right. How about this? She has a 3.9 grade point average. She has passed all her classes. If she on drugs, that’ll be. The goal is for her to pass and then graduate college.
So she [00:25:00] snorting coat. Let us snort coat for right now. . Cause she got all . No, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. Alex, if you on drugs, I’ll be fast. But, um, it, it is, it just no matter what it’s like there is no media among like the African American community for it’s healthy. Because even if you are in shape, they will still find something wrong with.
Yeah. Um, especially with females, if you are in shape, oh, she’s too muscular or she’s too lean, or she don’t have no booty. And then if you are super chunky, there’s some people that don’t feel the Foa team fpa, you
Shannon: stand up, be FOA friendly over
Mona Lisa: here. Free , Yes, team Foa, stand up. But it, it is, it’s just with us, it’s just, it’s, we’re harder on on ourselves.
We really. .
IB: So yeah. So that, that, that attest to the trauma that we were talking about. Um mm-hmm. another form of self, self inflicted trauma. Mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? So, um, you know, a testament to your example is, is, is that as well, [00:26:00] that’s another reason why in our community is so difficult for us to want to move forward because in, let’s say, you know, in the white communities, When people are, you know, losing weight and things like that, they go in front of their family and it’s like commendable.
Wow, you look great. So and so, like, you’ve been working out, you’ve been eating well. Okay. What have you been doing? Let me in on it. I would like to, That’s, that’s the reception that they get. For prioritizing their, their health. Where us, we come to the cookout if we’ve been, you know, um, focusing on our health or losing weight, you the laughing stock of the cookout, that’s oh, what’s so and so doing?
Oh, she must be sick. You know what I mean? Um, oh, then, oh, then she, oh, she thinks she better than he think he better than me. Huh? Just cause you got some muscles don’t mean now you the laughing stock and you the, you the outsider. We’ve actually experienced that. You become. The outsider because you are prioritizing your own right now.
It becomes a point to where when you’re into it, you’re up. Right? Right. You’re uppity, You know what I mean? Like, I’m the same [00:27:00] person, bro. I, you know what I mean? I just decided eat that . Right. I’m still the same funny guy that, you know what I mean? I still, I, I still like to party. You get what I’m saying?
Um, so yeah, that’s another, that’s another form of self-inflicted trauma. Why is difficult for us to move forward in our community?
Shannon: Yo, this conversation is just getting heated, so we gonna pause right there and come back next week with part two. I know you don’t wanna miss it, so make sure that you hit that check and subscribe on your iPhone so you can just wake up Thursday morning and bam, it’s right there in your Apple Podcast library or library, as some of our folks might say.
You can also follow us on the Graham. We are at Black Activities Pod. We’ll be here next Thursday and pick up this conversation where we left off talking about the Black health myths. But until then, Kings and [00:28:00] queens keep doing Big Kings.
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