Making Your Business Better With Nutrition and Fitness With Char Fazio / Ep. 52

On this episode, Bella spends time with Charlene ("Char") Fazio, one of her coaches who has inspired and motivated her to make a huge lifestyle change. Living a healthy life and sharing that passion and knowledge with others is exactly what Charlene Fazio believes she was put on this Earth to do. She continues to learn, share, and help as many people as she possibly can. She is no longer the mom sitting on the sidelines of her life - she is out there LIVING and LOVING every moment! Char believes that our time here is short, so you should spend every moment living YOUR BEST LIFE and always being grateful for what you have been given. There are no topics untouched as they speak about: The story of Char getting healthy Pregnancy loss and still birth The benefits of her healthy lifestyle The benefits of bio nutrition. Listen in as they show you how proper nutrition can actually HELP your business and poor nutrition could hinder it. Hear how pet sitting business owners have been able to start achieving their goals because their mind was right after they joined our pet sitting fitness group. If you want to learn more about the (growing) group of pet sitters 25+ who are getting serious about their health and nutrition by working out and meal prepping and planning together, contact Bella: [email protected] to learn how you can join the group too! You can find out more about Char at http://MyBalancedChaos.com Also mentioned is Mel Robbins 5 Second Rule. Subscribe To The Show: Transcript: This is episode 52 of Bella in Your Business. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready, Bella's got your chute. Let's jump. Welcome to another episode of Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta, your host, and today I have a really special guest for you. I wanted her on the show because she's been someone who's been instrumental in creating a tidal wave of personal change in my life. If you follow me on Facebook, she is the reason why I just recently went crazy over Dan Hardy's book, The Compound Effect, because she literally put it in my hands. She also is instrumental in my effort to help bring nutrition and fitness to pet sitters because she's helped me change my life so much. She lives a healthy life, shares the passion and knowledge with others, and is exactly what my guest Charlene Fazio, Shar for short, believes she was put on earth to do. She continues to learn, share, and help as many people as she can. She's no longer a mom sitting on the sidelines of life, but she's out there loving it and doing it every moment, and she believes that our time here on earth is short, so we should spend every moment living our best life and always be grateful for what we've been given. Shar, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for that welcome. For sure. You have been seriously like this lighthouse in my life at a time that I really needed it. We met back in January, and I think your story is pretty amazing. You're a mom, you're a teacher—can you tell us your story of who you are and why you decided to get healthy three years ago? Yes, I am a sixth-grade math teacher. I am a wife to a very busy husband who's a basketball coach, and I am a mom to Isabella. Life up till three years ago had always kind of had its struggles for me, but it really hit after I think Isabella was three. I became pregnant and then I had a miscarriage. I was so focused on fertility that everything else kind of went out, and then I became pregnant again, and we lost our son Samuel when I was 20 weeks pregnant. I thought, you know, that was rock bottom, but I was still so focused on my goal. I really wanted to have another baby. And then a year later, I became pregnant again, and that ended in a miscarriage and a surgery. I had become disconnected from my body. I didn't even like it because it couldn't give me what I wanted. It was this constant battle. I was reading everything and trying to eat everything that would give me what I wanted, and I just wasn't getting it. I was constantly reminded by the universe that I wasn't gonna get it. It was really hard mentally and physically to go from 20 weeks pregnant and then you don't have a baby, but you still look pregnant. I had found myself at this place where I was done with that chapter of my life, but I didn't know how to move on from it. I knew I hadn’t been fit in the past. I had always struggled with it, but I had run marathons, hiked mountains, enjoyed fitness, but I had lost my way with nutrition and needed to find my way back. I was literally the sideline mom. I was the mom who feared a swimsuit. I live in Arizona and I wouldn't wear shorts. I would literally tell people, "I just don't really like them, I'm so acclimated to the 120 degrees, I like to wear jeans." I had told myself these lies. My husband had scheduled a beach trip in July and it was May. I was like, I am not going to that beach and covering myself all up again because Isabella at this point was five or six. I knew I had to dig deep. I believed at that time of my rock bottom that my happiness was on the other side of 10 pounds. That was it. Ten to fifteen pounds would be my happiness. That would be my ticket. It was all about the scale and it was all about weight. So if I could just get myself from here to 10 to 15 pounds, that was happiness. That’s where I was—I was stuck. I was tired and exhausted every day. I wasn’t living my life. That’s incredible. I know a lot of our listeners have the same kind of struggles. A lot of people are struggling with infertility right now, and many don’t talk about it. As women, that’s something really important because we expect our bodies to produce this thing, and when it doesn’t, we feel betrayed. It just adds to us loathing our body for another reason. That’s powerful, Shar. Thank you for sharing that with us. So what was that turning point where you said enough’s enough, and what changed your whole mindset? That’s a great question. I did believe that happiness was on the other side of 10 pounds, and I think when I talk to people about health and fitness, a lot of people believe that. What I’ve learned is it’s not the weight—it’s the journey. It’s the process and it’s changing from the inside. I had lost my way in nutrition. I started eating clean, whole foods every day, and within a week my energy came back. I was no longer wanting to nap. I used to nap all the time. I’d come home, sit on the couch while my daughter played. Then I started to not do that. I realized, "My gosh, I’m not tired." It was strange because I thought that was normal—this is 40, 40 is tired. I had started to accept that, but I didn’t want to. The first thing I noticed was energy. Then I couldn’t wrap my head around a whole lot of fitness, so I chose to do a 25-minute program. I told myself, I’m going to go in for 25 minutes every day. That’s all I could wrap my head around. I modified a ton, but I did it. I did it every day. There’s something in that process that feels like a win. Whether each week I saw a pound, a half-pound, or even a gain but lost inches, I learned to trust the process. Each week I felt better. I had a glimpse of hope. I felt like my life was coming back. The awesome part was I was doing it. I was showing up for me for the first time in such a long time and pouring into me rather than everyone else. It felt so good that I just kept showing up. I lost 17 pounds and felt amazing. But I learned more about myself—about what I could do and what my potential was—than about the weight. You just said something that a lot of pet sitters, dog walkers, business owners, and moms can relate to—you’re doing things for everyone else. Who was that everyone else in your life and what kind of things were your days filled with? Everyone uses the word “busy.” I was working full time, getting Isabelle to school, handling after-school activities, running to my husband’s basketball games. It was a family decision that I was going all in for 10 weeks. I told them I needed everyone around me to support me and to give me this time. You’ve got to ask for it. You have to have your people behind you. I didn’t ask them to eat what I was eating. I didn’t ask them to stop doing what they were doing. I just said, give me the time to work on me. You really do have to develop that habit because it does feel selfish if you’re a busy mom—but it’s not. The flight attendant says, “Put your mask on first.” I used to think that was selfish, but it’s not. Now I can say I’m a better wife, mom, friend, and teacher because I’m passionate and have brought what I love into my classroom. That’s incredible. I love how you got everyone on board and how you said you have to ask for it. I hope listeners realize that you are worth it. You do deserve it. You have authority over yourself and the people around you to ask for it. When we come back, I want to hear about your peaks and valleys, because I know it’s more of a marathon than a sprint. You mentioned community—it’s so important. When I asked my family to support me, that was great, but I was part of a bigger community doing the same thing. Something happens when you start to believe in yourself and people around you believe in you—it empowers you. At first, I wasn’t interested in helping others; it was about me. But once I got my results, people started asking, “What did you do?” I started sharing everything, and people came to me. I wanted to help them and build a community of people who were sick and tired of being sick and tired. Life is peaks and valleys. I’ve learned to accept the journey and know that mountains are put in front of me for me to move. When valleys come, you have to dig deep and have self-belief. There were many times I had to listen to motivational videos to get back up....