WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

39. Dominicanas Empowering Women Beyond Body Goals with Meliza Fernandez

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 39

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Meliza Fernandez from Killer Bodies joins us to share how growing up in Dominican households, where fitness and natural food were prioritized, has influenced her approach to health. We dive deep into the personal struggles we’ve faced, including body dysmorphia and mental health challenges, and underscore the importance of defining a powerful "why" behind our wellness goals. Learn how continuous self-research and adaptability play crucial roles in maintaining a fulfilling life.

In our candid conversation, we reflect on the toxic environments and unrealistic standards within the fitness industry that fueled our passion for creating supportive, authentic communities. From launching classes while pregnant to building a thriving business, Meliza and I discuss the multifaceted needs of women beyond just movement and nutrition—addressing mindset, environment, and emotional well-being. Discover how personal empowerment and authentic representation have become the cornerstones of our wellness ventures, aiming to uplift women rather than merely focusing on weight loss.

Join us as we explore a holistic approach to wellness, emphasizing the significance of informed decisions, self-awareness, and mental health. We tackle societal norms around aging and health, advocating for sustainable, long-term strategies over quick-fix solutions. With practical advice and heartfelt anecdotes, we reinforce that wellness is accessible to everyone, even busy moms, and that personal growth is an ongoing journey. Tune in for an inspiring episode filled with valuable insights and empowering stories that will encourage you to take control of your well-being and embrace continuous growth.

Connect with Meliza:
Instagram: @themelizafernandez / @killerbodiesnyc
Website: https://killerbodiesnyc.com/ 

Thank you so much for listening!


Naihomy:

Hello friends, welcome back to another episode of wealthy generation podcast. I know I say this all the time, but today is really, really, really an exciting one because I have a very special guest with me today, melissa Fernandez from killer bodies, and I wanted her on this podcast today because I was just telling her I want to have a really candid conversation of just two women Dominican, hispanic, latinas, however you want to categorize it who have chosen a lifestyle really rooted in wellness. We promote it, we advocate for it, we fight for it tooth and nail. We promote it, we advocate for it, we fight for it tooth and nail. And we both can talk strategy and tips and all this all we want. But the truth is, when we don't feel seen, when we don't see the why behind something, when we can't relate, it becomes really difficult to go ahead and want that for ourselves or to see how it's even possible. So, melissa, I thank you for being here. Please introduce yourself and welcome.

Meliza:

Welcome, thank you, thank you, thank you, I'm here like welcome. Thank you so much for inviting me. I love it. I love connecting with my people, my women, and also someone that's an expert like you. Like you said, there's so many parallels you and I have, although we're so different. There's also so many parallels to from culture, age, the amount of children we have, our kids names, both of our sons being Sebastian what we push for and the community we work for, and you said a lot even in that little intro. That I think is super important.

Meliza:

People don't understand. Strategies will always be there. Strategies are actually the most Google-able thing. But if your why, when you said your why, if your why isn't defined which is something I find very hard to do with my people is have a very clear and powerful why those strategies won't stick. Strategies won't stick. You know they or or they'll. As you implement them, you'll be struggling and then something in your psyche makes you think that that struggle means that this isn't for you. It's all the show. I struggle daily, still, with everything I try to implement in my life continuously, and I have to have faith and I have to have and use everything I've studied to understand that doesn't mean this isn't for me. This is just simply I have to try again, or I have to shift, or I have to decide whether I'm going to work against this major resistance that's going to cause me so much more stress and have me thinking I'm failing, or maybe shifted to something that's more realistic and sustainable Right.

Naihomy:

I love something that you said, which was I struggle every, every day. I, I, one time, you know, I like to make this very clear to that, although we're wellness professionals and we might have some sort of certification or whatever, we're still human and, at least for me, it's like I'm still trying to figure it out. We, we. It's not like it's perfect, it's not like we know exactly what to do every day. We still figure it out. But I think it's the commitment to making sure we figure it out when things shift and change. You know talking about all of the different experiences we go through as women and as you and I. You know two kids getting older like you are going to. It's not going to be the same every single day or in different seasons, right?

Meliza:

Exactly, and I think something I would love for people to get is that I hear a lot what worked for me. Oh, this is what I used to do, that's not who we are the same way that if you don't stay on top of your partner, you guys can grow apart, because you're evolving as two separate individuals. Well, this is what I used to do.

Meliza:

That's not who we are the same way that if you don't stay on top of your partner, you guys can grow apart, because you're evolving as two separate individuals, right, and you have to do the work separately also in staying in tune with one another. Else One day you're going to wake up and things are not going to work simply because it worked before. That's what.

Meliza:

I want us as a group, as people, to be curious, to do research on ourselves, to try things, to say, okay, I'm going to take this approach because my approach isn't working. You said it I struggle every day and I struggle with different things. I've always been open about my body dysmorphia. I've always been open about my battles with eating disorder growing up as a dancer, and I think that's helped me be better for my people, because I can really relate and they don't disappear because I have to implement I wouldn't call them strategies, but, yeah, strategies I have to implement the hacks I've developed.

Meliza:

I've had to learn how to take five minutes a day and either pray, if you're religious, or, if you don't want to call it that, meditate, if you don't want to call it that, breathe anything that grounds you so that you have to remind yourself. Okay, this is my day today, and what can I do to close it off? Feeling in control, so that it's not in control of me, right, family, like I was telling you earlier, a lot of mental health issues, a lot of anxiety, a lot of schizophrenia, a lot of depression. So my why wasn't my mental health? My why was simply a chubby girl growing up in a white neighborhood, in dance school and always feeling like I didn't belong right, but then frustrated, making that un complejo, that like consumed me. My why now is completely tied to a fear of if I don't take care of me, I can lose me.

Meliza:

you know if I don't take care of me. How can? And we me, you know take care of me. How can? And we hear this. I know you have to fill your own cup, I know we hear it, and at this point everyone's like Lena, but I mean it. I look at my boys. I've never loved anything on this earth Like I love them. And that wasn't, that wasn't immediate either. I'm always open about that. It wasn't like I wanted to be a mom. I did not want it wasn't something really. That was a passion. It's something that now, at seven and eight, I'm here like, oh my God, I adore these boys and I want to continue to evolve in every aspect so that they can learn from that, because it's proven right. So this, this sentence, is for my mamas out there listening that sometimes we use our families as our clutch. As to why we can't, I say let that be a really big, why your kids are going to follow your steps more than they do listen to your word.

Naihomy:

Yeah, absolutely.

Meliza:

Like that to me and I'm sure you live the same way, where, like it wakes you up and you're like, well, something has to change because I'm leading a family. Now, right, they're seeing me outside of what you see, outside of my posts and outside of my classes. They're at home with me when I don't want to do something but I have to be like, oh, let's go do this stuff.

Naihomy:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing a little bit of what your why is and a little bit of your background. I was going to ask you if you can share a little bit of your story and what led you to be passionate of not only living this lifestyle for yourself, but also really promoting it for our community.

Meliza:

Yeah, you want to grab popcorn Because it's a long story want to grab popcorn because it's a long story.

Naihomy:

Let me grab my water because I want people to understand that at least not me, right? Like I didn't have an example of what a lifestyle as I like to call it rooted in wellness was like. Yeah, there's a lot of things I took specifically from my mom about, let's say, using food as medicine and making remedios and cooking at home, but that's not the full story of what a holistic lifestyle is. It actually found me, and I want to share a little bit of both of our stories so that you know, you can see and understand that it's not something we're born with, it's not something we were actually taught, is, at least for me, a passion that was developed and was shown to me and then I actively chose it because of the results that I saw. So go ahead, grab your popcorn, grab your coffee, grab your snack For me.

Meliza:

It was interesting. I actually did grow up with that example, my mom. I always want to show her off. I come from a very typical Dominican family but I want to say my parents were probably the scapegoats of the family because they had their kids really early. You know, they had my sister at 14. They had me at 24. Like they were done with me growing up I saw my mom unapologetically always make time for herself at the time.

Meliza:

When you're younger you think she's selfish, like everyone comments on me sometimes, right, and it's not until you hit a certain age. I was like, oh, I see why she did that. She had to just to kind of like keep her wits straight and just for her. But I did grow up with someone and two households, like a whole household, where my parents were both active every single day. Going to the gym was part of our routine and I basically was raised in like the babysitting section of Jacqueline, which was like a gym that existed 40 now about to be 40 back in the eighties. Same with food. She's very all natural, makes her own sassong. Everything is like you. Food is medicine in my house and I took it for granted because when you're. When you're exposed to that young, you don't think there's anything else. So in terms of making time for me, that is something that comes a little more neatly natural.

Meliza:

My story, where my passion comes from empowering women and really want making sure women feel well what's the word? It's not even like. My passion isn't to have you healthy. My passion isn't to make you drop 20 pounds, which is my, my. That would be an awesome. My job is to continue to push the idea that we are in charge of our life, that we can make changes, because if all we do is push only weight and push only health, there's so much that gets missed.

Meliza:

A thing that's very common in our community is, you know, like I was born regular. I was a beautiful little, not skinny child, and that was a conversation ignorant of love that was always brought up in my household, right Like everywhere I went, it was always comments on my body. I don't know how abnormal I thought it was at the time, but my life kind of took a turn when I went to college and I fell in love for the first time super old, because I was always so restricted at home and ended up being a really bad and abusive relationship Right, and it was a person who basically would take all my information that I would give about all my insecurities and use it against me. It was very verbally and physically abusive and I ended up getting out of that completely. It was on and off for a good 10 years, probably like around 2011,. Right on and off.

Meliza:

Throughout that time I was acting, dancing and seemingly to the eye looked great. This is why I don't think people have to judge someone's health according to how they look, because I I looked awesome. What people didn't know was that overly restricting working out five hours a day, monday through Saturday, with weekly or interdaily binges of food on the weekends, just had me in such a dark space in my life and I can't really explain what that cloud was. Um, but it did fall into my lap because my dream was to act and to to be on stage and there was an audition to be an instructor and I was bartending at the time and I was like, fine, let me go to this audition or whatever. And I had started training people, but it was honestly the the group fitness class of women.

Meliza:

It was like the year 2011. And I started to be in this community of X and workout and run NYC, and there was something that kind of woke up in me when I realized that sharing my story because I've always been open and I always tell people what it is um, how many people could relate. I saw how much lack of representation does damage to your psyche, to the way you see yourself, your body image, because it was the first time ever I was around my people. So I was actually shocked when my people used to be like, oh my God, you know, and I was so confused because I just was so stuck in that early thousands idea of what fitness is, just was so stuck in that early thousands idea of what fitness is, what healthy is. I had had so many experiences with bosses in the fitness industry that were terrible People writing the emails telling me that I was going to get fired if I didn't lose weight. I had people you know it was.

Meliza:

It was such a toxic space but, fast forward, I was loving life working with women and I decided to like I had so many ideas and I kept presenting them to the people that were my boss and they just kept ignoring it and I was like what if I just start my own thing, you know, something like where I don't have to follow protocol, where I don't have to be careful what I say or what I'm pushing Cause it's mine. Um, and I started KB. I remember being pregnant. I was three months pregnant when I did my first class. I had no money, but I had already been managing another company. So that's why I think, even though this company gave me PTSD, it's like oh X, like literally once I left, I couldn't talk about the place. I couldn't even play music that I used to play. I was like I cannot. I was so starved for it. Everything happens for a reason, because putting into practice and being around that and them having me run NYC taught me how to do it.

Naihomy:

So all I can say is I can't do it for myself.

Meliza:

So fast forward 2015,. I opened KB. It's just a class that I have twice a week. In two months it becomes a class I have every single day, and a year I opened another format. Another year, another format, and another year I was like was like fuck it, let's open up a studio in the middle of midtown. And I do that. Um, there have been many successes, but my background is the reason I kept adding on is that I started to study women and understand that there were more lacking. So when you are a trainer and an instructor, you think it's just movement and you're like well, it's not just movement, it's nutrition. Okay, it is nutrition, it is nutrition and movement. Okay, no, no, there's mindset. You're like, wait, there's mindset, there's exposure, like that's what we want you to hear today, that yes, it is movement, yes, it is the food it is. Then it's my environment. What environment are are you in?

Meliza:

like no one hears that nobody wants to hear that their environment is toxic. No one wants to hear that that the family they were raised in probably didn't pass down the best um habits, right? Yeah, we love our moms so much that nobody wants to admit maybe I picked up really bad habits from that. It's a very especially in our culture. It's a very like taboo. Like don't tell me my mom, it's not a mom thing. It's a very especially in our culture. It's a very like taboo. Like don't tell me my mom. It's not a mom thing, it's a. With every generation, it's our duty to find out more information and implement it into our new life. Right, my parents.

Naihomy:

I don't know anything against them.

Meliza:

They did what they can with what they had. Now it's my turn to think of my life and say what can I attain? So I want to say 2020, I was. I was definitely in COVID that I decided to finish a PN1 certification physician nutrition because I was like I definitely want to help people beyond and I love their approach, especially for people who have ever suffered with eating disorders. You have to put a little different than someone. It's not just numbers, it's really just understanding where that's coming from and the psychology of behavior. And then I started coaching because I really wanted to work with people on a deeper level.

Meliza:

But back to my past is, honestly, and it sounds so simple it's living too many years secretly hating everything that I embodied Right and I was such a pro, I was such a pro at making everyone love themselves, and it was such a sad reality that I couldn't do it for myself, which is why you know, like you see comedians and you're like they make everybody laugh. I think they're depressed. I know what it is too deeply to. I don't even know the reason why. Right like that's how Papa Dios made me.

Meliza:

I've always been very hypersensitive and and it's very easy for me to pick myself apart and to push myself to unhealthy, uh, limits. So my passion has been let me wake women up a little bit, because what I did see in a lot of people was a sense of just giving up. It's like this um, yeah, our, our culture has like, ah, like they put limits on things. You know, it's kind of like your body now, because when you have kids or you're 30 now, so get ready for this. And I want, I want us to build a community where people understand that as we age, we should get more excited. I'm about to be 40. And, honestly, I'm so excited at who I'm going to be at 50 that people can't stand me Cause I'm like I'll be so hot, I'm going to be so intelligent, I'm going to be I can. So if I were to say my passion, it is to feed you all that knowledge.

Meliza:

But more than anything, lately I find myself really wanting to shake people up. I even get aggressive. I'm like I want to shake you up and I want to ask you, like, what are we doing? Why are we paying so much money for band-aids? Why are we distracting ourselves? Why are we always trying to shortcut it when, if we shortcut it, we're cutting ourselves short, like it's us, we're short. It's not cool, it's not our job. Like we're getting to a point now and I love all your posts, I love all your stories, cause you go in. It's like I think it and you go in. I'm like, yes, tell them about that, because it's true. I think we see things very far right.

Meliza:

We don't know how close it's actually getting to our real life and when we look at the drugs that are being pushed on us not just available pushed on us versus no information on or access to gyms, uh, drugs pushed on us versus no information or access on nutrients or what we can get, lifestyles that are truly hindering our physiology. So it's kind of right now the more I learn, the more aggressive I feel and passionate to want to spread that knowledge, to say, hey, we can still take action and and and be the boss of ourselves. I told you I was going to ramble, but I'm going to bring it back now. Tell me.

Naihomy:

No, no, no, no, it's okay. I love it because there there's so many good things there and I actually was going to ask you, like what, what keeps you grounded now, like after going through all of that and the comments and you know the way you saw your body and all of that like how do you that you?

Meliza:

meet now everyone focuses on while they're so disciplined. We fall every day, but there comes a point where, like when you do something repetitively enough, it's not the win. You build trust Right and all the time you build trust in you. Not only trust in me now I trust the process. Not only trust in me now I trust the process.

Meliza:

But, we're talking about I'm going to be 40. We're talking about I've been doing this since 20. So people have to give themselves time. You know, still at 25, I was using, I was tracking what I would eat only on my good days, right. Still at 29, I was letting the scale still 29,. Still at 35, I was letting the scale control me. It's, it's a matter of there's a year where I try something because I heard it works and then I realize it's not for me. If, in this process, anyone listening feels miserable, then maybe you should. This is the time you want to reach out to professionals and say life isn't wasn't, it's not meant to be miserable. But you know, change is difficult so what keeps?

Meliza:

me grounded is that I can say I'm proud of the human I've really been in the past four years and I've seen that even when I feel like I'm failing, I've seen the work that just showing up daily for me has done for me and it makes me a little more excited to see what else it gets chaotic. I've had to stop being all or nothing. I've had to stop being all or nothing. I've had to stop being a perfectionist. All these identities that I thought meant I was so cool I realized no, they're actually hold you back a lot. Being a perfectionist is not good being all or nothing is not good.

Meliza:

These are things that we carry down when we're little because we think it made our parents proud. No, you want to be pliable because I have children right Like my nuclear little circle is two boys and my husband, and when their schedules are off, mine will have to sometimes be off when when my body, even though I'm in fitness, doesn't look like a 25 year old trainer's body.

Meliza:

I need to. It's not about settling, but I need to actually be real with myself and say well, what's the goal here? The goal is never to compete, the goal is just to get better for myself. The goal is never to compete, the goal is just to get better for myself. So I think the the way I stay grounded because we mentioned it before is making sure that each season I have a redefined why?

Meliza:

because then it allows me to change my why, right, and there'll be seasons where the why is I need to build and be a fucking muscle mommy. And then other seasons like I need to chill because my hormones are out of whack and I'm flipping out on everyone and eating everything. You know what I mean. If we only do one thing, we're gonna pop. So the way I stay grounded now is to allow myself um, ease and then understand something I tell my clients and I know I'm rambling, but it's sometimes we feel like we're getting nowhere because we're trying to be everything. They're trying to tackle the food with the workout, with the this. They can't get their steps in or their water in. But they're already asking me and if you're listening, I'm talking to you.

Meliza:

They're already asking me, melly, can I do 75 hard and I'm like sis, we can't even drink eight glasses of water and walk 5,000 steps. Why do you want to skip that? We can't even. You don't even eat enough fiber in a day Like I want people to understand that it's not that you can't do it, it's that for some reason, our brains are always trying to like jump the gun.

Meliza:

We try to jump and we fall. Psychologically, if you don't train your brain, you start to think I know it's not for me, I know it's not for too.

Naihomy:

It is hard.

Meliza:

Someone, someone tells me working out is hard. I'm like girl me getting a tummy tuck that I've considered many times. Um, because they told me I won't be able to move, I won't be able to go to my workout in four months. I have a decision from from my hip to my hip and if I don't know how to feed my body the right way. Guess what? Just like all my PS, just like my mom, just like everyone it's for nothing.

Meliza:

So so it's. It's us looking at things, not to judge them, but saying which one is actually for me and which one's actually going to build me up to be better. You know, so my, my, my groundedness is simply keeping that I do have to be selfish and I have to keep that vision right in front of me and that redefined why. And you know if and I think it might sound weird to some, but think about a life without it it has no direction, and when you have no direction, everyone else is going to pull you to theirs, and that's how you lose yourself.

Meliza:

Yes, you know. Yes.

Naihomy:

You get pulled into other people's energy real fast and then you'll feel like you know, why am I so lost? Why aren't things working for me? And it's because we're following every single other person. And I was thinking to myself recently. I was like, wow, we always like to focus on the good things of a situation, or like the good outcome, and no one, or we choose not to, or we forget, for whatever reason, the hard parts of it, because there's no one thing that is just rainbows and butterflies. There's also hard parts, and I don't know and and this I I talk about with the options of how we have that we have on how to transform the body, and talking about surgery, because I I don't know how you delivered your kids. I had two C-sections and I'm like man, recovering from surgery is so hard, like going going to the gym is not easy sometimes, but neither is recovering from surgery. They both have their hard components, right, you know? And something I talk about a lot is too, is that that fact that you spoke about is okay. We can choose one thing. Let's say it's surgery, but at the same time, how it's not a one and done type of thing, it's how do you nurture yourself from the inside. How do you learn how to eat so that you also feel well? Sometimes you can look good on the outside, but inside you don't feel well, you're struggling, you can't think straight because you have, you know, a foggy mind. You're being diagnosed with health conditions that obviously don't make you feel good. So think of that bigger picture. Yeah, there's many options out there and that's great because everybody needs something different. But think a little bit beyond that too, not just want, like not just the facade, also what's on the inside, also what's in your brain, like you've been saying.

Naihomy:

And one thing that you mentioned that was part of my story is the settling, or those limitations that get put on us with our new titles, with being a mom or turning a certain age. And that was my motivation, because after I had my second son, I was like I'm not going to be one of those moms that settles, I'm not going to be one of those moms that you know like lets themselves go. And I was so determined. But also I was not into dieting because I didn't like how it made me feel. I tried the juices and I tried the pills and I dabbled in everything for just a tiny little bit and I was like, oh, this sucks. And no, I'm like that's not for me.

Naihomy:

And what happened to me too that I didn't even realize is before I was even 30, I was also pre-diabetic. That I found out years later when I found my blood work, and that's also not cool. So that's part of my passion too. It's like sure you want to lose weight, okay, but let's look at that bigger picture, let's look at how you're doing it, let's look at how it's impacting your health. And then, although my story really did start with, I just want to lose the baby weight and I just want to feel good in my skin again and I don't want to settle at the same time, I noticed how it was making me feel, how much energy I had, how much patience I had, mental health, like how much more grounded I was, and that's actually what hooked me more than like the weight loss results I was getting Right.

Meliza:

Yeah, definitely I. That's. That's what people don't get. So when I work with people, I were always talking and they, um, they feel guilty if they don't get one thing done versus the other and they're like my workout and I can't. As a trainer, this is like what I do every day and they don't believe me when I'm like. The workout will always be there, the workout is your mental.

Meliza:

I'm always like the workout really isn't related so much to your weight loss. People might argue with me, but what I mean is we shouldn't look at the workout as the weight loss. Your nutrition should be what controls your health, right, because you're feeding your body from the inside out. And you said something amazing A lot of people just don't know, because a lot of people don't know where they're at in their body, so they might just be thinking I'm a cranky person, you might be mad and you're just like your body's just all trying to send you signals.

Meliza:

You have no idea what it's trying to tell you and you're here like ah, so that's a thing, but it's that, and you'll hear all of us say it. We all start for the wrong reasons. Don't get me wrong.

Naihomy:

I've only been.

Meliza:

I've only been in this journey. 75% of it has been chasing an aesthetic. Right, chasing an aesthetic. Everyone, every athlete, anyone that is really good at something. It is because we are obsessed in some way, shape or form. But what we gain from it, right, the respect I have for myself because I show up even when I don't want to, and even if I do it half-assed. I confess to everyone my workouts most of the time are really bad in my head, because if I have to, go before the boys go to school, yo estoy muerta.

Meliza:

And if I go at night, yo estoy muerta. But to me it's a symbolism of girl. You got to go Even if you don't want to. I've sat in locker rooms and I've walked out. I've done it all. I've made it to the gym and I've sat down and walked out. It's not. You've said it. Everyone thinks that certain things to me. I went to college for seven years. I just switched my major forever. I couldn't break my parents heart and just tell them I didn't want to go to school at the time and I wasted a lot of money and a lot of years to me. When I meet people with PhD, I'm like Whoa, that's hard, right, like that's hard. It's funny how, across the screen, people are like that's hard and I'm like a burpee is miserable. But it's what you're doing. You know what you've done. Raising kids is hard. Marriage is hard. No one told me that. One People told me, but I didn't know.

Naihomy:

I thought I know the person, but after I found them I didn't know actually, to work, to work for it.

Meliza:

You know what I mean. So, um, so it's. It's it's a tough place to be and it's it's so. I wish we can help everyone open up their eyes. Though what it feeds you is something no one else is going to give you. What I've learned, no one can take away from me. It's not a job I can get fired from. It's not a level of confidence that, um, chasing a number which I have been every number on the scale gave me, because when you only chase, you're never happy. Um, you said it.

Meliza:

This isn't about us bashing any decision. I support all decisions. Yeah, life is supporting women all the time. Girl, if you want to be in a thong twerking all day long, I am there to support you. But we want to make sure you're educated. We want to make sure you're going into decisions knowing all the information so you can make it last, because for many, that is a great tool, but for a lot of people, they're choosing that tool versus the things that they shouldn't be bypassing you know, and then you're just stuck in a in a worse place.

Meliza:

And going back to mental health, that's the one that hits closest to home. Um, my sister. I haven't seen her in three years. My sister is out in the streets, my sister is not. We don't know of her that. It's something that's so from my sister to my uncle. It's something that's so prevalent in my family that I'm not talking about working out and I'm just saying lack of awareness with yourself and not being centered and not being grounded and ignoring your why and ignoring any moment that you have to to really settle in with yourself, can lead you to a place where you don't recognize who you are and over time that creates mental and hormonal chemical imbalances in your brain that we're not above. You know it's not. I mean, we actually don't know.

Meliza:

So you can take things and and have them in our control within right. If someone doesn't have a gym membership, how can they start? You take vlogs. Yeah, I know I know it's hard, especially for moms, but we're moms, we know it's hard. You know it's it's difficult. In the beginning of me being a mom, I would eat all the leftover mac and cheese and he's like fuck, miley, like, instead of throwing it away, your Dominican mentality of not throwing away food.

Naihomy:

Don't waste food. Don't waste food. I'm a goldfish.

Meliza:

I don't like goldfish, I don't like tomato and cheese and you keep scarfing anything. I was like, come on, it's silly things like that that aren't a big deal, but could be the answer as to why you feel you're not moving forward when we're talking about like physicality or like you know, like physical, yeah.

Naihomy:

Yeah, absolutely Trust me. I'm working towards that myself, and I think something I'm catching from the both of us, as I'm hearing us speak, is that you need to have multiple goals, you need to have multiple whys, so that is well rounded. It can't just be one thing and what else are you going to build on that? And I think that's so important and it's something that you have, that I've picked up on, and it's something that I was thinking do I have that too? And it's like, yes, it can't just be the number on the scale, because that shifts, and something that you spoke about, chasing numbers. It's like what is the benefit of this for myself, holistically, and how does it trickle down to others.

Naihomy:

So, okay, the scale might not be where I want it to be, or my body composition or whatever, but what else does this workout that I really don't want to do today grant me? Or what decision do I make to make a meal at home versus buying something out in the street Grant me? Okay, well, it can help me, and I'll just give some examples. Like, it'll keep me energized. I'm not going to be crashing in the middle of the day and then thinking I need more coffee or energy drinks. Um, oh yeah, I said the energy one. It can make your mental health so much better. It can actually give you mental alertness, which is something else, rather than fatigue. It can actually put the pennies in the bucket for you. It can actually help your body digest better and process insulin better and all these other little things. That does not have to be fixated all the time on this one result that we get tied to. That's temporary right.

Meliza:

Like yeah, I'm going to be training for something on my bucket list, a body competition. Right, I built a body but the competition and I know you guys are going to be seeing me, but it's interesting. I really want people to understand. Sometimes we want to chase and do what these people do to look like them. They're doing everything to manipulate their body in a very extreme fashion for one hour, for one day.

Naihomy:

And they know that that's only going to last, that that's unrealistic.

Meliza:

Those are extremes. When someone has an event, that's an extreme. Chasing a number, we'll have you chasing. Think of like even saying that chasing will have you chasing and we have to decide. Are we in the position that we can chase? Cause sometimes we're setting goals that aren't realistic and it's just setting us up for failure.

Meliza:

Is my sadness? Really the fact that I'm fat, that I have cheat shows? I don't feel good. Or is it that habits that I've never developed? You know, maybe it's not the fact that what I look like, my sadness or my insecurity, can be attached to the fact that I don't know how to say no. I have a mentality. I don't know how to put boundaries on myself. I don't know how to tell people what I want. I'm scared of manifesting what I dream of, because if I say it out loud, I feel ridiculous. Those are the real issues when someone says what are my friends going to tell me?

Meliza:

What do you mean? You're going to inspire them. And if you don't inspire them, then honestly, I know no one wants to hear this. I'm not saying kick them out, let life do what it does, but you don't want people around you that aren't going to push you to be better. So sometimes and I learned this super duper late I learned this super duper late. I learned it after being all the way 180 pounds. I've learned it at starving myself all the way to 135. I was never happy my biggest days of my life, my day I got married. I wasn't happy when I had my kids. My biggest regret was I was so obsessed with like, only working out and dieting and being great throughout my pregnancy that I couldn't enjoy the beauty of what it is to carry my child Right. Um, after my kid I had, I didn't have to see C-sections. I had natural birth, but the first one was a very traumatic one. I flatlined. I had three blood transfusions.

Meliza:

It was basically, um, my placenta never came out. So when they pulled out the placenta, my uterus never contracted and I bled out and it was so my body. Here was this person? Lesson from God? That was like so on top of her shit throughout the whole pregnancy and had an amazing pregnancy my recovery I had four degree tears from my vagina to my anus and if someone doesn't know what that is, that's basically.

Meliza:

It all opened up like nothing and that recovery was so traumatic, you know, like yeah of not using my body to what you said earlier put me in such a like bad mental space that that's what I think about when I think of the options of surgery, but I'm bashing it. It's a. I don't think I'm strong enough to do that. To me, that's a. That's a big thing. Um, we've all had hard lives and I want. I want people to understand that. Let that be a builder for you.

Meliza:

You know, you've done harder things than it is to learn, and that's why people are there. I know our community isn't used to reaching out when it comes to that. They don't see the value in it right away and that's something that we weren't taught. But be the game changer in your family. You know. If you are in a place where you feel you're really unhappy, reach out for therapy. If you're in a place where you feel like you can't get a hold of of your wellness, of the food you're eating, you know, reach out to Naomi.

Meliza:

If you're someone who wants to put and change and prove to themselves they can change their physique, reach out to me. It doesn't have to be us but this concept of that we're going to be living this world miserable. Come on, we come on. We're not our grandmas anymore. Like we don't have to have that position because we're in a space of information and support, and that's what I want us, as women, to wake up to. Like. That's what makes me happy is when someone says hey, I traveled and I was in control. I wasn't worried about x, y and z. I actually chose better for myself. I was focused on protein.

Naihomy:

You're like yeah, you're never like, of course I want you to feel good in your body.

Meliza:

But listen to that statement. I was happy. I wasn't thinking about it. I felt great in my skin. You choose better, you won't settle, you won't allow. No one wants to hear it. But if, how can we expect others to fill that gap for us if we don't know how to do it for ourselves? I did it. I, my poor husband had to deal with the worst versions of me and it's because I projected everything I couldn't do for myself onto him. Our marriage was very rough because I was someone who was very angry at my past, angry at myself, very unhappy, and you know, those are things we have to wake up and really come to terms with. Like, wait, are the people around me? Do they suck, or is it me, me? Am I? Am I not doing anything for myself and I expect, like the world, to just keep turning in my favor?

Naihomy:

yeah, absolutely. I think you said something there. It's like reaching out for help or support from somebody and it doesn't even. I know that my journey started to change my life through listening to podcasts and reading books. It wasn't. I was so embarrassed, I didn't know how to ask, I didn't know what I needed. I didn't know any of that and just by there's so much. It's actually just information overload right now. But if you find I'm not saying listen to everything or maybe like to find something that you connect with, but start looking, start searching. You know, if you're listening to this right now, you're already at a great start. I think that people are a lot more friendlier and willing to help without judging, than you might assume. At least, I know for sure that both of us are, and it's just a place to begin, even if it is not necessarily voicing it, but at least you're consuming and listening to other perspectives and opening your mind to different possibilities right, you can choose who you relate to the most.

Meliza:

Right. It's a lot like you said, information overload.

Meliza:

Um, it's awesome that we have access to it, but it can be confusing because, remember, there's a lot of information but they have different lies, they have different directions. Yeah, trying to tackle everything at once, you will feel like you're not getting anything done, but I think that's genius. Open your free time If you feel like you can't read. Listen to a book, listen to a podcast, look for people who you feel connected to that for some reason. When you listen to them, you're like, oh okay, that way the information is sinking in and then maybe that will open you up, because, also, to work with someone I love that.

Meliza:

You said that not everyone's ready to. There've been plenty of times that I feel like I threw my money away and it was me, it wasn't the program, it was that I perhaps wasn't ready to show up the way I needed to show up and to put my full trust in somebody, because we are stuck in our way. So, again, this is me, but this is 20 years of inexperience. This isn't like. This isn't perfection, and this is still figuring out what route I want to take it and what I'm most passionate about and how I want to help.

Naihomy:

Yeah, and that definitely shifts. I know you've been in the game way longer than me. I'm like approaching year eight and I can't. I never, ever, ever, ever imagined this was going to be my life, and I'm so grateful it found me and I'm so grateful that I didn't even know y'all existed, and by y'all I mean like like wellness Dominicana's or Hispanic women, latina women that were in this world. I was just so surprised. I was so shocked. I wasn't really a person who was online a lot and I learned a lot of things on my own. I was by myself.

Naihomy:

It was very lonely in the beginning and, slowly but surely, you start to find your people. I think something that you mentioned of who are you surrounded by, what are their values, what directions are they pulling you into is very important, and something that my clients in particular struggle with is becoming a different person in front of people who knew them since they were children, like their family and their friends, and it can be very intimidating or overwhelming. I know I myself went through that, but something I encourage them to do is number one don't be pushy and don't try and force them to change or anything like that. However, you, standing in your own light and you showing, not like showing off, but just you being yourself. People notice that, people notice that energy, people notice that vibe, and it is attractive not to be complaining, not to be, you know, looking dull, like to for your skin to clear up, for whatever your body starts to change.

Naihomy:

Cause again, there can be many goals. I know I I have a goal of perking up my booty. Yeah, I want that. And I also want my prediabetes not to come back Like. Both can be true, both can be true, you know. So I just want you to know that, yes, I was embarrassed, yes, it was intimidating, yes, it's. It's easy sometimes and it's not easy sometimes. But if you choose something, if it's part of your values, if it's some, if it's who you are, more often than that you're going to be really standing in your own corner.

Meliza:

Yeah, right, and I think, like I guess I'm so aggressive in my approach and I've had to soften up. Um, I've been doing this through my pregnancies, right when I was pregnant, oh my God, everyone hated me because I was just me and I was pregnant and I was like in classes like I'm pregnant, but now I'm nicer.

Naihomy:

I can't even imagine you being mean.

Meliza:

I'm just. I guess I go hard because I'm that person, Like I'm very passionate. Having my kids actually taught me a lot because they're very different and that was the best lesson it taught me that people are different. You would think I would have known that before, but before it was very black and white with me. Either you do or you don't. You know it's like you do or you don't. If you want this or not only because when I really want something I am obsessed.

Meliza:

When I really want something I do go all in and that's worked for me, and when people tell me they're unhappy and they really want I want them to understand, then why would you sit in that unhappiness? Now, what I want to remind people is it doesn't have to be extreme, you know, like, give yourself the grace of time. It can be something as small, as like if someone's drinking Coke, as small as just taking that away right. Like if someone when it comes to alcohol, everyone takes that. So, personally, when I'm coaching them, they're like what I'm coaching them. They're like what I'm not calling any. I can enjoy a good drink if I really want to, but the minute I pulled it out of my life I didn't miss it, you know. And if I'm away and I want it, I do like it's something it just became something I don't do mindlessly anymore because mindless.

Meliza:

Yes, we partake in a lot of activity that hurt us. So even that that space of.

Naihomy:

I'm not judging, you'm just saying but if you're going to take it, just for the sake of it, don't. And you don't realize how it's making you feel back to what you were saying in the beginning. You don't realize how bad it's making you feel and why you're doing it, because you're following other people, because you feel because it's the norm.

Meliza:

It's what you do when you have fun and once and I promise you what this is coming from someone that after her classes I'm not going to, I'm not like, oh my God, I was an alcoholic, but I'm a party girl, Like I'm a bartender, I'm like a New York city party chick and even when my kids were little I'd go to the bars. I'm a foodie. I'm a self-proclaimed foodie. Go to restaurants, get four cocktails, but the minute I pulled it out I didn't miss it. I really didn't. It wasn't really that hard to say no and people respect it more and some annoying people try to push it and you just say no yeah, yeah yeah, like or or.

Meliza:

If you want, you do it, but like I tell my people also, you want the chocolate cake, go to the really good bakery that you love exactly just don't.

Meliza:

Let's stop settling for mindless behavior, because there's actually a whole list of things we have to do for ourselves. Even when I get when I get on my husband's ass that I'm so mouthy sometimes. Now, the new melissa, melissa 2024 is like there's new, there's things you have to work on. Go to your room and do it and read a book. I'm like go clean your closet. I want to be pointing out all his mistakes, right, like that's just little habitual things I do. But in general, what I want people to emphasize. It could be all or nothing If you, I mean, it could be extreme if you're, but I think that's what has us failing.

Meliza:

I think, we'd be better off. And, like you said, start small, look at everything. What are the things you actually want to change? You don't have to wait for us to tell you what. There's plenty of things People tell me they want to change and change it.

Naihomy:

You know you want to wake up 10 minutes earlier.

Meliza:

It's not going to be easy, but nothing is no me, my why is that? I just came to a place where I wasn't happy. If you invited me to a beach, I wasn't going to go. Like, if you, if, when, when there's life, if you're at a place right now where normal life events are causing you a lot of anxiety and stress because they're attached to the way you feel about yourself or you look, those are red flags. Don't accept that, yeah.

Naihomy:

Yeah, yeah.

Meliza:

This is a life to celebrate at all shapes and sizes. This isn't about being a mold, but, like you said, check how you're feeling. You're always. You wake up cranky, hating the world. Maybe it's not that that's your attitude. You perhaps know, from something really bad going on in your body and balances and like really stressing you out, and we find out too late.

Meliza:

Like you said, you didn't even know, because no, one's going checked and the things that are actually off balance don't pop up in labs as abnormal. You can pop up super normal on labs and feel like shit and unless you work with someone specific, they might not be able to help you out. So yeah, we are, there is a setup. Don't beat yourselves up. There's definitely like something going on. We're, we're set up. Right now we have to jump.

Naihomy:

Y'all let me tell you, if you have not listened to the episode right before this one on how capitalism and yeah, it's a, it's a rant where capitalism and comfort is setting us up for not being well, y'all need to listen. It is exactly what melissa is saying, where this world and society, at least like living in the U? S is not set up to our benefit. That's part of it. And then all of our lived experiences with just not knowing because I thought I was. It was just that, like with prediabetes, I was always hangry, I always needed a snack, I always had migraines. I was a very unpleasant person. My husband would be like you. You, you pack your snack, like you pack your snack because I'm not going out with your.

Naihomy:

Snickers commercial. I was like from tiger to bunny Right and I didn't realize that it was my blood sugar. And you know what? I went back, I found my blood work from back in the day and I was literally in the pre diabetes range and the note from the doctor says oh, you should work on this, but it's really not a big deal. Just, you know, eat a little bit more vegetables. That.

Naihomy:

And it wasn't taken seriously from there and and I have I had no idea what that meant. I mean, I was the person drinking Coca-Cola while pregnant and I thought it was fine and eating all these things and it was not okay. But I didn't know that. And because other people in my family and other people, I knew it was like oh yeah, my feet are swollen, that's normal in the summertime. I knew it was like oh yeah, my feet are swollen, that's normal in the summertime. Oh yeah, you know, I always get a migraine. I thought it was just the way life works and it's not. It's not.

Naihomy:

So taking deep responsibility, like Melissa saying, taking deep awareness, being curious and being like but hold on, you're not meant to feel sick in your body all the time. That's your body communicating with you. You're not meant to be bloated and fatigued every time you eat. You're not like. You know it's, it's not. I think it's so common and everybody talks about it and everybody makes fun of it, which pisses me off, Like, um okay, I'm close to 40. I'm 38 and a half or something like that, but there's so many jokes put on age, when we're our age, of like our back hurting, our knees hurting, we can't do this, we can't do that. And we're both here to tell you that that is not true.

Meliza:

If you're in my program you know I don't like that We'll make jokes about themselves.

Naihomy:

I'm like don't take that out of here.

Meliza:

I don't like it because you're saying, like you just said it, I've been, I've had the privilege, I've been in this in a long time, so once you're in a long time, the people around me are, which I don't like because sometimes I forget right what it's like in this.

Meliza:

I forget what it's like not to be in this realm. So I forget that. A lot of people, like you said, it's very normalized when you're at a family gathering and everyone looks no offense, but people don't look their best. They peaked at high school and they're telling you yeah, remember the good old days. If you peaked in college or high school, something's wrong with your life, because what you should want to do is build a life that you continue to peak throughout. That's when I'm like Gnosis.

Meliza:

When people ask me how do you look the way you look now? I didn't do anything special. All I did was maintain and keep myself going and eventually everyone falls off and you're the last man standing and everyone's like Melissa. But I'm like you. Just do little by little, when something doesn't work, you figure it out. The reason I got here was that all these advices I never took. I started taking them coming from a head instructor. I tell my women now, at my age, doing that for five hours won't get you the body slow down oh, no, yeah slow down a little bit.

Meliza:

I lost my period for a whole year. I was super puffy. They couldn't figure it out. I've had. I've had cysts since I was younger. So, just like you, a lot of things get dismissed because at a young age, at 33, they're not paying attention. If you have PCOS, you're a health instructor, oh, you're within range of weight. They weren't picking up on the fact that I was like, yeah, but I don't have my period.

Meliza:

I feel weird, like you know you feel weird but you can't figure it out. And I mean I shifted, but a lot of the things you have to do as pre-diabetic insulin resistance, pcos, a lot of it is very alike right. You just start thinking how can I holistically hold back on what I'm doing?

Naihomy:

And.

Meliza:

I, you know you said it, I can't say it enough. You want to get curious with yourself. You want to be your own research project before you go ahead and put things in your body. You want to try things. So these tools, again, they may work. They may not work, but a lot of it is new, not full research. I work with people on medication and off and the side effects aren't worth it sometimes, or the rate of gaining it back isn't worth it sometimes, and we have to be smarter. You know, capitalism is real against us and when something really works, it really works. There's no backlash and there's not one thing when it comes to health that's actually worked, if you think about it no matter what they try to sell us, except for taking care of yourself and eating better like.

Meliza:

I don't know if we've seen that before all these years we've been sold on the herbal life, we've been sold on the weight, why we've been sold on every thing. There are moments in life that that can help you, but what you want to do is gain knowledge. Knowledge is power, not anything just like a quick fix.

Naihomy:

And learn how to use it too. Yeah, where you get it.

Meliza:

Exactly what's how's? How's it gonna help you? How's it? Because sometimes get stuck. We get stuck in analysis paralysis. I have a lot of learners who want to learn it all but don't put things into action. Um, but if you're stuck in that phase, if you feel frustrated, if you're scared, if you don't know where to start, sit with yourself and actually write that down and write it on paper and say I, I'm really unhappy.

Meliza:

You know, don't, don't find something to keep you busy, so you're not confronting it. Start. Start sitting there and start thinking that sometimes the best way forward is the smallest things that I can keep up with. That's what we mean by sustainable. When that's, I think that's a confusing word for a lot of people. They're like what do you mean? Sustainable? It means why put your body through so much stress to do something for six weeks when you can actually just learn how to change your life?

Naihomy:

Yeah.

Meliza:

To give up eating platanos. Like without being told that you have to like, not eat everything you were raised on. That's not, oh, your problem is not right now your weight, it's. It's the fact that you're unhappy in your habits that got you there. It's like understanding. Can we undo some of those things so we can become a person who's good in our skin, not a specific physique or shape?

Naihomy:

Yeah, and still have goals without being like hurtful or I don't know. You know, like you, you can have the same goals, but the energy and your approach to it can shift, which can make a big difference. Yeah, so I want to close this off by touching on two things that I feel hold a lot of women back. No matter their responsibilities, you can have kids or not have kids and still be responsible for a lot like aging parents, nieces and nephews, whatever it is your career. Shame and guilt. How do we accept that we will feel sometimes shame and guilt for taking time to take care of ourselves and do it anyways. How do you navigate with that?

Meliza:

I feel it all the time. The amounts of times, well, aside from fitness, having my own business, the amounts of times I can't show up to every single little recital. My husband, you know, we play tap Like you'd go to this one. You go to that event for the boys and I can't be at everything and there'll be days where, like, there's tears going down my eyes, but I have to get it done because my priority, my value at the moment.

Meliza:

remember we talked about our wise and that can change seasonally is I have to continue to show up for this area. I have to sit in my truth. I have to understand the importance of my health. So, although at the moment with them, but when you're away, investing in yourself, that's going to multiply for later, right? So it's kind of it's that it's it's doing workouts that are going to build you versus just burning calories. Same thing One is going to burn calories, that's not bad, that's awesome, you moved, and one is going to invest in your body. That's going to make you stronger, that's going to help you build mass, that's going to help you navigate your blood sugar later. Like that, that one's an investment.

Meliza:

So for me, it's always hard. It never goes away. So I don't say it to be depressing. There's always new levels of guilt that are born in terms of I'm lucky, I'm not. My parents are still very able, I'm responsible just for my boys and I have a partner who's very understanding. So unfortunately, he always goes last on the list because I'm like Ciao, I'll see you. But when it comes to my kids, I've had to have a lot of sacrifices. If I'm working through my truth, I don't struggle as much as the days that I mindlessly feel like I'm working, just trying to keep busy. So it's, that's, that, that's, that's a that's. That could be like a another episode, but that one's really hard. I just want us to understand that. What? The minute you become a mom, a daughter, a partner, a CEO, why would you have to become second to anything else?

Meliza:

Like what makes us believe that we're no longer at the top of that list, you know the biggest mistake and that was because of societal reasons, generational, because my parents were campesinos that came and like they couldn't think of themselves. They had bigger problems to deal with, Right. But in the ideal world what we would teach our kids is you are important, your sanity is important, your happiness, your wellbeing, your thoughts, your feelings, you know we won't be silencing them. So we have to realize that that was passed to us and that's our job. To kind of like work, maybe not against us in the word, so we don't put something negative but feedback into us.

Naihomy:

So, all.

Meliza:

My mom is struggling, like with anything. We're not moms like any anybody right now struggling, handling a lot of jobs. It's not easy, but ignoring yourself won't make it easier yes, thank you for that.

Naihomy:

It won't. And I something I like to think about too is sometimes it's hard to make those decisions and I always like to encourage people to look for the other emotion that's there. So you can feel guilt and you might feel shame, but they coexist with other emotions too. Like, maybe if you go to that workout or you go feed yourself, you also feel some sort of peace, some sort of joy, some sort of calm accomplishment. So don't dismiss those and the shame be so loud that you miss out on what else you're receiving from that action that you took on top of everything that you said already, which is I think it's amazing, so great.

Meliza:

I love it. I love our conversation.

Naihomy:

Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing and just like letting us know how can we keep pouring into ourselves and what actually really is important for us to be looking at and focusing on please let know, let let all of us know how, where can we find you, how we can we support you? If somebody's like I, really want to do something, where can they start with you?

Meliza:

well, I'm really bad at this. I'm gonna practice. Can you believe doing this for so long? I'm like.

Meliza:

I don't like talking about myself but I think I'm me at the melissa fernandez killer bodies, nyc killer bodies, nyccom. Also, you can always hit me up, dm me. Um, we have an awesome community so it's not always just about working one-on-one. If you want to find space for women who look like you a big variety that's not polarizing and you just want to join a space where you can start moving your body, um, we do have fun projects coming on like killers around the block, which is going to be us walking around the city and just opening up things for the community. Um, this is what I love. I love women, I love my culture, I love my people and I just want us to do better because, like naomi said it's she didn't know we were here. Can you believe? Like I I know latinos in general, but I speak because I'm a dominicana. But like we are the majority of latinos in nyc and it's a shame that we're still I mean, not anymore, there's so many of us, but there has to be more.

Meliza:

There has to be our community and it has to be something we start normalizing. So it's not such a shock to us.

Naihomy:

Yeah, and I've been to your classes if y'all didn't know, but I have been and they were phenomenal. It it put me out of my comfort zone in a good way I just want to say that and it got my body moving in a good way. And if you're ever a little shy or embarrassed about being in a group and I know I felt that way again and I was all the way in the back I just want to say that is super welcoming and nobody's out there to judge you and everybody just really does have a good time. So I highly, highly encourage, if you're local and I know that she also has some online virtual programs If you're not local- there's so many things.

Meliza:

If you want anything, just reach out and we'll. I will direct you until where you need to be directed, and if you want to come through and you're scared, I will stand right by you Don't like that's. That's the least of our concerns. But I also have to remember that is a thing you know. But the hardest thing is to show up. But anyway thank you for having me. This has been awesome. I love this and I can't wait to see you in Santo and in La República Dominicana.

Meliza:

Oh my gosh, we're both. Oh no, you're not in DR yet but I am and we're trying to plan something super fun, so let's see if it happens. Yeah, we're gonna. I'm excited. All right, my love, big kiss.

Naihomy:

All right. Thank you everybody for joining us this week on the wealthy generation podcast and I'll see y'all next week. Bye.