March 24, 2025 • 21 mins
You remember her from the late night infomercials of the 90s, decades later, fitness icon Susan Powter is still inspiring us to STOP THE INSANITY!Find out how the OG motivational speaker started the popular wellness movement when she was newly divorced and weighing 260 pounds.Plus, how she brought thousands of followers on board well before social media, and what she says NOT to do if you're looking to lose weight.
Make sure to check out the New York Times Best-Selling author's latest book "And Then Em Died; Stop The Insanity, a memoir" out now.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is let's be clear with Shannon Dherny. Well, let's
be clear about a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Number one, Shannon and the nineties and stop the Insanity.
I am Susan Powder, otherwise known as Stop the Stop
the Insanity, Lady of the nineties, Fitness nineties and nine
oh two one oh. So it's such a pleasure, such
a pleasure to be here, and let's be clear. And
there's a lot I would like to be clear about.
So I was thinking last night. I was thinking last
(00:31):
night about obviously doing this podcast, and I was thinking
about Shannon. I was thinking about the experience she shared, good, bad,
or indifferent, the sharing of it and what used to
be known as storytelling is now a very different thing.
I know that because what stopped the insanity was, and
for those who don't know it was, it was the
(00:53):
nineties of wellness and eat, breathe, move and think and
you know, lean strong and healthy and crazy woman with
short white hair that did not exist anywhere else, screaming
on TV and blah blah blah. But what stopped the
insanity was it was storytelling. And what used to be
(01:14):
storytelling is now information sharing. And that's what Shannon did
for years and years, through a horrifying battle and a
brave battle. She shared an experience that nobody really I mean,
you know, the last thing you want to share.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Probably is HI, I have cancer.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But that sharing of the experience, I know, changed thousands
and thousands and thousands of lives, made millions of people
aware of things you may not have thought about. Stop
the insanity literally started, and it was massive. It started
by me sharing my experience. I just talked about an
(01:56):
experience of being single mother in Garland, Texas in the eighties.
Stop the insanity. It was the nineties. I would like
to just make that clear. The eighties was when I
woke up one day with two babies a year apart,
and then we call him the Prince Forever, decided.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
He was an into marriage anymore and left.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So going through a divorce, single mom a year apart,
my children were and I woke up one day and
there I was at way over two hundred pounds, not
liking the way I looked or felt at all. I
did not like the way I looked and felt. I
didn't like the energy I didn't have. I didn't like
the disconnection from my body. I changed the way I
(02:39):
looked and felt. I lost well over one hundred pounds.
I got strong, I built lean, muscle mass, I built
cardio durance. How I did that is the story and
was the story of Stop the Insanity. But the reason
it became anything was because I spoke with other women,
literally in the supermarket I would be the supermarket. Piggly
(03:01):
Wiggly was the supermarket in Garland, Texas in the eighties.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm sure it may still exist. I don't know. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I had never heard of a supermarket called Piggly Wiggly,
but that's where I shopped with my two babies, and
women would say, like passing babies.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
We had babies, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I had a one and a two year old sitting
in the cart, and they would say, oh, you look
so good. You just had And I would say, no, no, no,
you don't understand I was. I'm telling I was two
hours and sixty pounds. And all I did was change
the way I eat, and I changed movement, and I
added oxygen to my life. And women would gather in
the aisles of the grocery store. There was no TV,
there was no seven books, there was no nine Platinum videos.
(03:40):
There was no Simon and Schuster, Time Warner, every television,
there was none of that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
There was none of that.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Everything that Stopped the Insanity was was based on sharing
my experience of a single mother going through a divorce
in the early eighties in Texas.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And while you're.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Doing that, trying to reconnect again with my body, it
is the women that blew that whole thing up, and
they understood a message.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
The message that is simple.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, there's no physiology degree, there's no there's no anything.
I heard a few things that dramatically changed my life.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
We didn't have the internet.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Then everybody listening knows that, like you don't have to
be past. I have three sons, the two boys that
everyone in Stop the Insanity grew up with, and they
know the prince is and was the ex husband. And
what people don't know years later is I adopted a
baby at forty so I have forty two, forty one,
(04:43):
and a twenty seven year old. And that twenty seven
year old knows absolutely nothing about Stop the Insanity had
nothing to do with it. Like years and years and
years later, but when I heard, I heard basic things.
We didn't have the Internet, and I say, to my
twenty seven year old all the time time. You have
no idea what it took to get information. And it
(05:03):
wasn't that long ago, you know. You know, if you're
I would say now, I don't know whatever, younger than
forty otherwise you know what I mean when I said
to get information back then, to go and find the
books that explained, like how do I lose all this way?
How do I lose so much weight? How do I
feel strong again? How do I change my body back
(05:24):
to anything I recognize?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I want to look and feel different.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I heard a couple of facts that change my life forever,
just like I'm sure all of you who are loyal listeners,
I mean loyal listeners and care ver enough about this
podcast that it's still going strong, which is kind of
thrilling and bravo Shannon. I mean for real, you know,
to get information then wasn't as easy as here on
(05:51):
the phone. I heard a few facts at two hundred
and sixty pounds that changed my life. I'm sixty seven,
so I was. I don't know how old I was
twenty something? You know, who knows when I had the
first two? You forget after a while, take it from me.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I heard that.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Lean muscle mass was metabolically the most active tissue in
the human body. Now where I heard that was from
a bodybuilding book that I was reading in Garland, Texas,
and I thought at two hundred and sixty pounds, I thought, well,
I could use some active tissue internally, didn't know what
it meant, didn't know how to do it, had no
idea what. I also heard that fat burns in oxygen,
(06:31):
and the only way to get oxygen into your body
is to move in it for thirty minutes or more
in oxygen.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I heard those two facts a thousand years ago. I
had nobody to share it with, to say the least,
but it ended up being shared with millions of people
all over the world. That's my point exactly, with experience sharing,
which we can do here, we can do it so
much more easily now, and we can continue to do
(07:00):
with women like Shannon, who built a platform that gives
us the privilege of continuing to do it. So that's
why I'm grateful to be asked to do this. It
(07:20):
was sharing the information. I had to find it, you know,
much more difficult ways. But once I heard heard just
those two facts, I applied them. I didn't have childcare,
I didn't have any money. I was a single mother Garnland, Texas.
Enough said, babies a year apart, two ten pounds babies
a year apart. Every mother, grandmother about to be a
(07:42):
mother listening understands exactly what I'm saying right now. And
women now are having these babies like you know, one
after the other after the I know how difficult that is.
Back in the day, I didn't have childcare, I didn't
have a babysitter, I didn't have I didn't have anything.
And I did not like the way I looked and felt.
So what I did was I put my babies under
(08:04):
a tree in the front yard, literally, and I walked
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I didn't go.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Further than a quarter of a block, obviously, because every
time one crawled, I would go, and here's your little toy,
and we're going to be doing there, and here it is,
go ahead, God put there.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I just went back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And I did that for thirty minutes every single day,
for seven days a week. I did it every day.
I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't
know what I was doing. I just knew that fat
burns in oxygen. I had a ton of fat on
my body that I didn't want to have. I wanted
to get leaner. I wanted to feel stronger. I wanted
(08:46):
to be reconnected to my body. I wanted to wake
up with energy. And what was frightening, really frightening to me,
is I would I would say, I would say, I
start two thirty coming, and you know you have to
babies a year apart you gain weight, You're breastfeeding two babies.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I get it. I get it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Then months go by and all of a sudden, it's
like to ten to thirty to fifty, And I just thought,
what's next? I mean, it just keeps going up. I
have to I have to reverse it, and I have
to change it. So I heard two facts that changed
my life forever. That burns in oxygen and lean Muscle
mass is metabolically the most active tissue in the human body. Well,
(09:26):
I could use some activity internally, didn't want it. Didn't
even think I don't want to be a bodybuilder. I
even remember the book Corey. I can see her in
my mind's eye. I remember the book that I got.
There was no female bodybuilders talking about anything, but it
was a book by Corey and I will.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Find her and acknowledge her.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And she explained what lean muscle mass was metabolically the
most active tissue in the human body. So I started
biceps tricep, building a little bit of lean muscle mass
and walking back.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
And forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I knew, just like you, I know, just like everyone knows.
America is the most documented country in the world. If
you want to know any fact or figure, you can
find out. It does not change behavior at all. That's
why knowledge is not power, actually unless you know how
to apply it to your daily life to get you
the end results you want.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But you know the foods that aren't I know.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I changed what I started putting in. I found out
another fact. I found out that there are two things
that slow down your metabolic rate if you live in
a human body. This is for anybody who lives in
a human body. I found out that two things slow
down your metabolic rate. One is lack of movement and
the other one is lack of fuel dieting. So when
(10:44):
you're dieting and not exercising, dieting to lose weight, you
are greatly affecting your metabolic rate, whether you have a
slow or a fast one. And if you've been told
that you were born with a slow metabolism for your
whole life, I just have a question to your doctor.
Follow it up with, but there are two things you
can do to greatly increase your metabolic rate. That would
(11:05):
be eating on a regular basis, Fueling on a regular basis,
because food is fuel and activity that activates internally your
metabolic right. Okay, So I started finding out these little
facts that I started applying, having no idea, having no idea.
Never once, never once did I ever say, well, I'm
(11:27):
going to write a New York Times bestseller, let alone
three of them. I never once it never crossed my mind,
never crossed my mind. Never once did I say I'm
going to do videos with Time Warner. What happened, And
this is the reason I'm explaining it a for a
lot of people who may have no idea what stuffisanity
is be for everyone who does remember and has never
(11:50):
heard the story of how it happened. I can tell
you how it happened. Is I started talking to other
women about my shared experience. I'm exhausted. I have two
kids a year apart. I don't like the way I
got so much fat on me. I don't know what
to do on the size, you know, eighteen, like I've
never in my life.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I don't feel great. I don't like the way I look.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And it's hard and I hate him, and divorce is
hard and I'm going to be broke because I just
started talking to other women and it was the sharing
of the experience.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Does it matter what the experience it is is that we.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Never had a way to say, you know, I feel
the same way, Like that's exactly how I feel. And
that's why when I think of Shannon, and when I
think of millions of women who are going through whatever
it is and simply tell the truth about the fear
and the joy and the sadness and the revelations along
(12:48):
the way.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
It's such a privilege. It's such a privilege.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And I know what it can do when you no
matter what it is, and now you can do it
so easily, it's like ridiculous compared to what we had
to go through. You have no idea how powerful it is.
You have no idea how powerful it is, or who
is going to hear what they need to hear and
how it can change their lives. When I think of
(13:17):
stop the Unstanding, I think of a lot of things.
I just wrote a memoir, which you know I'll do
an Amazon whatever, And I wrote it because a nobody
knows about the story of how it happened, and nobody
knows what has happened since. And I can promise you
it's a hell of a story. The reason I told
(13:48):
the story of it is because what it always meant
to me. Because no corporation wanted me. They were not interested.
Nobody jumped on it. Nobody thought it was going to
be successful. I did an infomercial. They didn't even care
what I wore. They didn't It was a five camera
shoot with thirty five hundred women. Those women in that audience.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I have so many stories to tell, but let me
just stick with the one I'm talking about now.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I don't think it's storytelling.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I think it's sharing experiences and you just have no
idea who it affects. I didn't know then what it
was going to blow up to be, just as far
as a career and amazing experiences and doing incredible work
and meeting hundreds and thousands of unbelievable, unbelievable people at
(14:34):
every event in seminar. But it really the cell of it,
the cell of it was me sharing an experience of
being completely overwhelmed, first of all, about how my body
had changed. Second, single mother, never expected that. Third, may
I say it living in Garland, Texas? No thank you,
(14:56):
no thank you. You know, the eighties, you can add
a whole bunch of stuff that the isolation of mothering.
We were not isolated anymore, the isolation of anybody. People
were not isolated anymore. So you know, when I thought
of let's be clear and what it means, what immediately
came to mind was, let's be clear about how lucky
(15:19):
we are that we can get to each other now
so simply, and what all the negative?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I know what the Internet is. I'm not delusional. I'm not.
I couldn't be more excited about the Internet.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I kind of sound like I kind of sound like
an idiot when I talk about I mean, I'm like
to my son all the time.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Do you realize what a privilege he was raised with it?
He's like, yeah, okay, now I get it. Mom.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
But you know after a while it's a little I
just think it's an opportunity for all of us. But
the power, the power that I witnessed personally in my
life was sharing your true experience, sharing a story, good, bad,
or indifferent, and your authentic fears and your authentic joy
(16:03):
and your authentic experience in that sharing effects more people
than you could ever ever imagine. I never would have
known back then a thousand years ago. I mean that
those two boys now from Garland, Texas, back in the
day just before Stop the Insanity happened and the reason
it did, are forty two and forty one now, so
(16:26):
that many years ago, that impact that it had was
a woman with two babies in Piggly Wiggly who had
dramatically changed I dramatically and by.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
The way, I've forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So I wanted to be lean, strong and healthy for
the rest of my life, and I found out that
it was an incredible I'm not going to say simple,
because I know what it feels like if you're listening
and you're not comfortable and not physically where you want
to be. I know that when someone goes it's really
simple to look it is obnoxiously offensive. I understand that
(17:03):
what I'm going to tell you is what I said
a thousand years ago, because the message has not changed
one iota, not one iota. If you live in a
human body, If you live in a human body, your
body can burn fat, period the end.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It doesn't matter what your genetic does. Your body can
burn fat.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
If you live in a human body, your body can
increase lean muscle mass, which is metabolically the most active
tissue in the human body, if you live in one.
I can tell you that if you live in a
human body, you can feed your metabolic rate every day.
You can feed it. I don't just mean fuel what
you eat. I'm not even going to get into the
(17:46):
It is regular fueling on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Think about this.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
If you have the fireplace and you're going to build
a fire, but no wood, no wood, you just there's
no wood. You're not going to have a fire. There's
not going to be heat. You're not going to have
a flame. Same thing with barbecuing. But I don't I'm
not don't call me to your next event and ask
me to barbecue because you don't want me in charge.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Of that grill.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I can promise you that I learned that I can
feed my metabolism. I learned that I can build the
most active tissue in the human body. I learned that
fat burns in oxygen. I learned that the human body
can get leaner, stronger, and healthier.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
And I learned that it is far simpler. It is.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
It has been ridiculously deliberately complicated by many an industry.
When I said that back and stop the insanity nineties,
that's when stopped the insanity was the women. They just
it was this rally of like, oh my god, I've
been to every die place they lied And I'm like, yeah, totally,
I did the same thing they will just and I said,
(18:48):
you are sure. You should be so pissed off, like
you're being ripped off, you're being lied to. They don't
know what the hell they're talking about. And it's much
simpler than they're making it seem. That would be the
fitness industry. That would be the diet industry. Don't even
with the diet. That would be the a That would
be a whole lot of people, a whole lot of people.
The facts of the of the if you live in
a human body matter made so much sense to me,
(19:09):
and I applied the simple things and have never.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Stopped applying them.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So what I would like to be really clear about
is I am very grateful for the privilege of being
able to now, in this day and age, reach I mean,
reach anywhere and everywhere. I'm very, very grateful to the
women who fought the battles, like Shannon, who were courageous
(19:36):
enough to share the truth, the absolute truth, which I'm
sure affected gazillions of people. Gazillions of people. That's incredible power.
That's a lasting legacy, and I mean, that's just powerful,
powerful reality. So I was thrilled to be asked. You know,
(20:01):
I'm glad to be able to We had major zoom things.
I don't know everybody had a zoom thing today apparently,
so I got to do this on my phone, which
I think is the most exciting thing on the planet Earth. Again,
I sound like it just a crazy person when it
comes to Hey, do you know about this thing called
the Internet? It's amazing, It's amazing. So that's what I
(20:24):
would like to share. What I would like to share
is I don't see it as storytelling. I see it
as powerful, wonderful, courageous people sharing their experiences, and those
experiences just there's just a light.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And I guess I mean it's true.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I mean, Corey writing that book in nineteen whenever the
hell she wrote it changed my life.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
When I learned what she had to say.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So if you've got something to say, you can now
and if you're authentically saying it, it can be very powerful.
And I just want to hear more and see more
and share more. And that's my goal. So thank you
for having me. I appreciate it.
This is let's be clear with Shannon Dherny. Well, let's
be clear about a couple of things.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Number one, Shannon and the nineties and stop the Insanity.
I am Susan Powder, otherwise known as Stop the Stop
the Insanity, Lady of the nineties, Fitness nineties and nine
oh two one oh. So it's such a pleasure, such
a pleasure to be here, and let's be clear. And
there's a lot I would like to be clear about.
So I was thinking last night. I was thinking last
(00:31):
night about obviously doing this podcast, and I was thinking
about Shannon. I was thinking about the experience she shared, good, bad,
or indifferent, the sharing of it and what used to
be known as storytelling is now a very different thing.
I know that because what stopped the insanity was, and
for those who don't know it was, it was the
(00:53):
nineties of wellness and eat, breathe, move and think and
you know, lean strong and healthy and crazy woman with
short white hair that did not exist anywhere else, screaming
on TV and blah blah blah. But what stopped the
insanity was it was storytelling. And what used to be
(01:14):
storytelling is now information sharing. And that's what Shannon did
for years and years, through a horrifying battle and a
brave battle. She shared an experience that nobody really I mean,
you know, the last thing you want to share.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Probably is HI, I have cancer.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
But that sharing of the experience, I know, changed thousands
and thousands and thousands of lives, made millions of people
aware of things you may not have thought about. Stop
the insanity literally started, and it was massive. It started
by me sharing my experience. I just talked about an
(01:56):
experience of being single mother in Garland, Texas in the eighties.
Stop the insanity. It was the nineties. I would like
to just make that clear. The eighties was when I
woke up one day with two babies a year apart,
and then we call him the Prince Forever, decided.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
He was an into marriage anymore and left.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So going through a divorce, single mom a year apart,
my children were and I woke up one day and
there I was at way over two hundred pounds, not
liking the way I looked or felt at all. I
did not like the way I looked and felt. I
didn't like the energy I didn't have. I didn't like
the disconnection from my body. I changed the way I
(02:39):
looked and felt. I lost well over one hundred pounds.
I got strong, I built lean, muscle mass, I built
cardio durance. How I did that is the story and
was the story of Stop the Insanity. But the reason
it became anything was because I spoke with other women,
literally in the supermarket I would be the supermarket. Piggly
(03:01):
Wiggly was the supermarket in Garland, Texas in the eighties.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I'm sure it may still exist. I don't know. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
I had never heard of a supermarket called Piggly Wiggly,
but that's where I shopped with my two babies, and
women would say, like passing babies.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
We had babies, you know.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I had a one and a two year old sitting
in the cart, and they would say, oh, you look
so good. You just had And I would say, no, no, no,
you don't understand I was. I'm telling I was two
hours and sixty pounds. And all I did was change
the way I eat, and I changed movement, and I
added oxygen to my life. And women would gather in
the aisles of the grocery store. There was no TV,
there was no seven books, there was no nine Platinum videos.
(03:40):
There was no Simon and Schuster, Time Warner, every television,
there was none of that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
There was none of that.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Everything that Stopped the Insanity was was based on sharing
my experience of a single mother going through a divorce
in the early eighties in Texas.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And while you're.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Doing that, trying to reconnect again with my body, it
is the women that blew that whole thing up, and
they understood a message.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
The message that is simple.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I mean, there's no physiology degree, there's no there's no anything.
I heard a few things that dramatically changed my life.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
We didn't have the internet.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Then everybody listening knows that, like you don't have to
be past. I have three sons, the two boys that
everyone in Stop the Insanity grew up with, and they
know the prince is and was the ex husband. And
what people don't know years later is I adopted a
baby at forty so I have forty two, forty one,
(04:43):
and a twenty seven year old. And that twenty seven
year old knows absolutely nothing about Stop the Insanity had
nothing to do with it. Like years and years and
years later, but when I heard, I heard basic things.
We didn't have the Internet, and I say, to my
twenty seven year old all the time time. You have
no idea what it took to get information. And it
(05:03):
wasn't that long ago, you know. You know, if you're
I would say now, I don't know whatever, younger than
forty otherwise you know what I mean when I said
to get information back then, to go and find the
books that explained, like how do I lose all this way?
How do I lose so much weight? How do I
feel strong again? How do I change my body back
(05:24):
to anything I recognize?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I want to look and feel different.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I heard a couple of facts that change my life forever,
just like I'm sure all of you who are loyal listeners,
I mean loyal listeners and care ver enough about this
podcast that it's still going strong, which is kind of
thrilling and bravo Shannon. I mean for real, you know,
to get information then wasn't as easy as here on
(05:51):
the phone. I heard a few facts at two hundred
and sixty pounds that changed my life. I'm sixty seven,
so I was. I don't know how old I was
twenty something? You know, who knows when I had the
first two? You forget after a while, take it from me.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I heard that.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Lean muscle mass was metabolically the most active tissue in
the human body. Now where I heard that was from
a bodybuilding book that I was reading in Garland, Texas,
and I thought at two hundred and sixty pounds, I thought, well,
I could use some active tissue internally, didn't know what
it meant, didn't know how to do it, had no
idea what. I also heard that fat burns in oxygen,
(06:31):
and the only way to get oxygen into your body
is to move in it for thirty minutes or more
in oxygen.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I heard those two facts a thousand years ago. I
had nobody to share it with, to say the least,
but it ended up being shared with millions of people
all over the world. That's my point exactly, with experience sharing,
which we can do here, we can do it so
much more easily now, and we can continue to do
(07:00):
with women like Shannon, who built a platform that gives
us the privilege of continuing to do it. So that's
why I'm grateful to be asked to do this. It
(07:20):
was sharing the information. I had to find it, you know,
much more difficult ways. But once I heard heard just
those two facts, I applied them. I didn't have childcare,
I didn't have any money. I was a single mother Garnland, Texas.
Enough said, babies a year apart, two ten pounds babies
a year apart. Every mother, grandmother about to be a
(07:42):
mother listening understands exactly what I'm saying right now. And
women now are having these babies like you know, one
after the other after the I know how difficult that is.
Back in the day, I didn't have childcare, I didn't
have a babysitter, I didn't have I didn't have anything.
And I did not like the way I looked and felt.
So what I did was I put my babies under
(08:04):
a tree in the front yard, literally, and I walked
back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I didn't go.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Further than a quarter of a block, obviously, because every
time one crawled, I would go, and here's your little toy,
and we're going to be doing there, and here it is,
go ahead, God put there.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
I just went back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And I did that for thirty minutes every single day,
for seven days a week. I did it every day.
I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't
know what I was doing. I just knew that fat
burns in oxygen. I had a ton of fat on
my body that I didn't want to have. I wanted
to get leaner. I wanted to feel stronger. I wanted
(08:46):
to be reconnected to my body. I wanted to wake
up with energy. And what was frightening, really frightening to me,
is I would I would say, I would say, I
start two thirty coming, and you know you have to
babies a year apart you gain weight, You're breastfeeding two babies.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I get it. I get it.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Then months go by and all of a sudden, it's
like to ten to thirty to fifty, And I just thought,
what's next? I mean, it just keeps going up. I
have to I have to reverse it, and I have
to change it. So I heard two facts that changed
my life forever. That burns in oxygen and lean Muscle
mass is metabolically the most active tissue in the human body. Well,
(09:26):
I could use some activity internally, didn't want it. Didn't
even think I don't want to be a bodybuilder. I
even remember the book Corey. I can see her in
my mind's eye. I remember the book that I got.
There was no female bodybuilders talking about anything, but it
was a book by Corey and I will.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Find her and acknowledge her.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
And she explained what lean muscle mass was metabolically the
most active tissue in the human body. So I started
biceps tricep, building a little bit of lean muscle mass
and walking back.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
And forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I knew, just like you, I know, just like everyone knows.
America is the most documented country in the world. If
you want to know any fact or figure, you can
find out. It does not change behavior at all. That's
why knowledge is not power, actually unless you know how
to apply it to your daily life to get you
the end results you want.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
But you know the foods that aren't I know.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I changed what I started putting in. I found out
another fact. I found out that there are two things
that slow down your metabolic rate if you live in
a human body. This is for anybody who lives in
a human body. I found out that two things slow
down your metabolic rate. One is lack of movement and
the other one is lack of fuel dieting. So when
(10:44):
you're dieting and not exercising, dieting to lose weight, you
are greatly affecting your metabolic rate, whether you have a
slow or a fast one. And if you've been told
that you were born with a slow metabolism for your
whole life, I just have a question to your doctor.
Follow it up with, but there are two things you
can do to greatly increase your metabolic rate. That would
(11:05):
be eating on a regular basis, Fueling on a regular basis,
because food is fuel and activity that activates internally your
metabolic right. Okay, So I started finding out these little
facts that I started applying, having no idea, having no idea.
Never once, never once did I ever say, well, I'm
(11:27):
going to write a New York Times bestseller, let alone
three of them. I never once it never crossed my mind,
never crossed my mind. Never once did I say I'm
going to do videos with Time Warner. What happened, And
this is the reason I'm explaining it a for a
lot of people who may have no idea what stuffisanity
is be for everyone who does remember and has never
(11:50):
heard the story of how it happened. I can tell
you how it happened. Is I started talking to other
women about my shared experience. I'm exhausted. I have two
kids a year apart. I don't like the way I
got so much fat on me. I don't know what
to do on the size, you know, eighteen, like I've
never in my life.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I don't feel great. I don't like the way I look.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And it's hard and I hate him, and divorce is
hard and I'm going to be broke because I just
started talking to other women and it was the sharing
of the experience.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Does it matter what the experience it is is that we.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Never had a way to say, you know, I feel
the same way, Like that's exactly how I feel. And
that's why when I think of Shannon, and when I
think of millions of women who are going through whatever
it is and simply tell the truth about the fear
and the joy and the sadness and the revelations along
(12:48):
the way.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
It's such a privilege. It's such a privilege.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
And I know what it can do when you no
matter what it is, and now you can do it
so easily, it's like ridiculous compared to what we had
to go through. You have no idea how powerful it is.
You have no idea how powerful it is, or who
is going to hear what they need to hear and
how it can change their lives. When I think of
(13:17):
stop the Unstanding, I think of a lot of things.
I just wrote a memoir, which you know I'll do
an Amazon whatever, And I wrote it because a nobody
knows about the story of how it happened, and nobody
knows what has happened since. And I can promise you
it's a hell of a story. The reason I told
(13:48):
the story of it is because what it always meant
to me. Because no corporation wanted me. They were not interested.
Nobody jumped on it. Nobody thought it was going to
be successful. I did an infomercial. They didn't even care
what I wore. They didn't It was a five camera
shoot with thirty five hundred women. Those women in that audience.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I have so many stories to tell, but let me
just stick with the one I'm talking about now.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
I don't think it's storytelling.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
I think it's sharing experiences and you just have no
idea who it affects. I didn't know then what it
was going to blow up to be, just as far
as a career and amazing experiences and doing incredible work
and meeting hundreds and thousands of unbelievable, unbelievable people at
(14:34):
every event in seminar. But it really the cell of it,
the cell of it was me sharing an experience of
being completely overwhelmed, first of all, about how my body
had changed. Second, single mother, never expected that. Third, may
I say it living in Garland, Texas? No thank you,
(14:56):
no thank you. You know, the eighties, you can add
a whole bunch of stuff that the isolation of mothering.
We were not isolated anymore, the isolation of anybody. People
were not isolated anymore. So you know, when I thought
of let's be clear and what it means, what immediately
came to mind was, let's be clear about how lucky
(15:19):
we are that we can get to each other now
so simply, and what all the negative?
Speaker 1 (15:25):
I know what the Internet is. I'm not delusional. I'm not.
I couldn't be more excited about the Internet.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I kind of sound like I kind of sound like
an idiot when I talk about I mean, I'm like
to my son all the time.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Do you realize what a privilege he was raised with it?
He's like, yeah, okay, now I get it. Mom.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
But you know after a while it's a little I
just think it's an opportunity for all of us. But
the power, the power that I witnessed personally in my
life was sharing your true experience, sharing a story, good, bad,
or indifferent, and your authentic fears and your authentic joy
(16:03):
and your authentic experience in that sharing effects more people
than you could ever ever imagine. I never would have
known back then a thousand years ago. I mean that
those two boys now from Garland, Texas, back in the
day just before Stop the Insanity happened and the reason
it did, are forty two and forty one now, so
(16:26):
that many years ago, that impact that it had was
a woman with two babies in Piggly Wiggly who had
dramatically changed I dramatically and by.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
The way, I've forever, forever, forever.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So I wanted to be lean, strong and healthy for
the rest of my life, and I found out that
it was an incredible I'm not going to say simple,
because I know what it feels like if you're listening
and you're not comfortable and not physically where you want
to be. I know that when someone goes it's really
simple to look it is obnoxiously offensive. I understand that
(17:03):
what I'm going to tell you is what I said
a thousand years ago, because the message has not changed
one iota, not one iota. If you live in a
human body, If you live in a human body, your
body can burn fat, period the end.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
It doesn't matter what your genetic does. Your body can
burn fat.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
If you live in a human body, your body can
increase lean muscle mass, which is metabolically the most active
tissue in the human body, if you live in one.
I can tell you that if you live in a
human body, you can feed your metabolic rate every day.
You can feed it. I don't just mean fuel what
you eat. I'm not even going to get into the
(17:46):
It is regular fueling on a regular basis.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Think about this.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
If you have the fireplace and you're going to build
a fire, but no wood, no wood, you just there's
no wood. You're not going to have a fire. There's
not going to be heat. You're not going to have
a flame. Same thing with barbecuing. But I don't I'm
not don't call me to your next event and ask
me to barbecue because you don't want me in charge.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Of that grill.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
I can promise you that I learned that I can
feed my metabolism. I learned that I can build the
most active tissue in the human body. I learned that
fat burns in oxygen. I learned that the human body
can get leaner, stronger, and healthier.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
And I learned that it is far simpler. It is.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
It has been ridiculously deliberately complicated by many an industry.
When I said that back and stop the insanity nineties,
that's when stopped the insanity was the women. They just
it was this rally of like, oh my god, I've
been to every die place they lied And I'm like, yeah, totally,
I did the same thing they will just and I said,
(18:48):
you are sure. You should be so pissed off, like
you're being ripped off, you're being lied to. They don't
know what the hell they're talking about. And it's much
simpler than they're making it seem. That would be the
fitness industry. That would be the diet industry. Don't even
with the diet. That would be the a That would
be a whole lot of people, a whole lot of people.
The facts of the of the if you live in
a human body matter made so much sense to me,
(19:09):
and I applied the simple things and have never.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Stopped applying them.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
So what I would like to be really clear about
is I am very grateful for the privilege of being
able to now, in this day and age, reach I mean,
reach anywhere and everywhere. I'm very, very grateful to the
women who fought the battles, like Shannon, who were courageous
(19:36):
enough to share the truth, the absolute truth, which I'm
sure affected gazillions of people. Gazillions of people. That's incredible power.
That's a lasting legacy, and I mean, that's just powerful,
powerful reality. So I was thrilled to be asked. You know,
(20:01):
I'm glad to be able to We had major zoom things.
I don't know everybody had a zoom thing today apparently,
so I got to do this on my phone, which
I think is the most exciting thing on the planet Earth. Again,
I sound like it just a crazy person when it
comes to Hey, do you know about this thing called
the Internet? It's amazing, It's amazing. So that's what I
(20:24):
would like to share. What I would like to share
is I don't see it as storytelling. I see it
as powerful, wonderful, courageous people sharing their experiences, and those
experiences just there's just a light.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
And I guess I mean it's true.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I mean, Corey writing that book in nineteen whenever the
hell she wrote it changed my life.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
When I learned what she had to say.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So if you've got something to say, you can now
and if you're authentically saying it, it can be very powerful.
And I just want to hear more and see more
and share more. And that's my goal. So thank you
for having me. I appreciate it.
Host
Shannen Doherty
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