Click on NOTE CATEGORIES to browse by topic, read through the entire archives, or type a topic in the search box.Katy gives us some backstage access to the Prevention magazine feature that puts her message about movement in the centerfold, as well as sharing some insights into what her everyday world is like. Oh, and there are Muggles and roosters. And watermelons.
DANI: It’s the Katy Says podcast, where movement geek, Dani Hemmat – that’s me – joins biomechanist, Katy Bowman – (silence.) That’s you.
KATY: That’s me. Sorry. I was like – who is that? She sounds fascinating! Yeah. That’s me, that’s me.
DANI: That’s it; I’m calling you biochemist from now on.
KATY: It’s a dangerous – are you going to start pulling that when we have Skype connection, Internet connections and I’m outside, like, all these things are different, I’m like, oh.
DANI: It was your idea to do it!
KATY: That’s true. But not today. Like, anything that didn’t happen today has left my memory.
DANI: Hilarious. Okay!
(Intro music)
DANI: It’s the Katy Says podcast, where movement geek, Dani Hemmat – that’s me – joins biomechanist, Katy Bowman –
KATY: That’s me!
DANI: Author of Move Your DNA for discussions on body mechanics, movement nutrition, natural movement, and how movement can be the solution to modern ailments we all experience.
KATY: And I fully expect both of those intros to be side by side, by the way.
DANI: Okay.
KATY: I think that if anything, we are authentic. Authenticity needs to be upheld.
DANI: Authentic, yes. Okay – you just got off a tech break. Just give me a quick – how was that? How do you feel?
KATY: The tech break was amazing, and I am – I entered the social media world yesterday with reluctance, meaning that I had actually cultivated not being on it. It wasn’t – like anyone, I think – any time you’ve done any sort of detox, if you will, whether it’s sweets or alcohol or social media, there’s a phase over which the desire for it maybe fades out a little bit, right? And then you’re not – as soon as you go off of a healthy, like, say you go off of sugar, the day you go off of it, off of the fast or the detox, you want to stuff your face with sugar again. It’s like a weaning almost more than anything else. Like, I had been weaned off of social media, so I’m playing with how I don’t really want to go back on it. I don’t have the need for it. Whatever that need was filling, I don’t have it anymore. So I’m creating new boundaries around it. Maybe that could be its own separate show is how do you create rules or boundaries that get you the thing that you liked about it and not the things that you didn’t? So I’m working on that. I’m working on that right now. That can go in our mission statement show when we talk about just maybe putting pen to paper for yourself.
DANI: Yeah, and keep notes on that. Think about that, because that is good.
KATY: Well, clearly I am going to forget it. So next time you start the show –
DANI: I can’t tell how you’re feeling, though. I’m doing my own tech break in July, like, right now; when people hear this I will be on a social media break. Not really a tech break, it’s a social media break.
KATY: And speaking of tech, I’m recording outside, so if you hear birds and –
DANI: I hear boods – birds – boods. I hear boods. I hear birds and I hear a rooster. Do you have a rooster?
KATY: All those things. We have all those things.
DANI: Sounds pretty good on my end.
KATY: It’s not bad. It’s not bad. Just so you know, it’s like, “what’s wrong with her sound?” Nothing. That’s the sound of life where I live. So anyway, yes, it’s a busy week here.
DANI: Yes, you have had a busy year, and I’m not even going to recap it because there’s shows about that, but everyone knows what you’ve been up to – even the fact that you think you’re writing some books that you told me you weren’t going to write. But –
KATY: You forgot to remind me I wasn’t writing books. All my responsibilities are now placed on your shoulders.
DANI: Excellent, I’ll take notes on how you feel and keep track of what you’re not supposed to be doing. What is out this month, though, and I guess it came out just recently – like, last week – has pushed things to a new level.
KATY: Do you feel that way? Do you feel like it’s pushed things to a new level? I definitely –
DANI: Yes.
KATY: Yeah? So I – I guess without any more suspense, we are talking about the July issue of Prevention magazine. Prevention.
DANI: Prevention.
KATY: Prevention. It’s a big one. It’s a Rodale publication and interestingly enough, this is also the first time Prevention – July – 2016, for those of you in the future – it’s the first time Prevention has ever been published without ads.
DANI: Which is awesome!
KATY: Yeah. So it was ad-free, which the New York Times covered it, because the ads were kind of limiting – the funding of the ads were limiting what they could say as a health magazine, because most of their funding comes from pharmaceutical ads, so –
DANI: I guess you were really – you appreciate that a lot, that they went ad-free.
KATY: Well, yeah – I mean, I don’t read magazines, usually.
DANI: Well, no, but –
KATY: But specifically for the advertising – I think it’s ramped up – I used to read health magazines. You know, my early 20s, that was a big source of inspiration, and I would say information for me as a teen. Oh, and Teen Beat. You know, Teen Beat notwithstanding. Who doesn’t like a good copy of Tiger Beat once a week?
DANI: Yeah.
KATY: But yeah – I was happy that to be in this almost, like, is it flagship might not be the right one, but it’s a prominent article in a milestone issue for Prevention. It’s a 12 page – it’s not like –
DANI: I’d say that’s prominent.
KATY: It’s prominent, and it’s the centerfold.
DANI: It’s 2500 words.
KATY: It’s in the centerfold, everybody. So just so you know.
DANI: Katy, you made the centerfold?
KATY: So you know – oh, yeah. So I – and it was a big shoot. They were at my house all day, and it’s a 2500 word article about nutritious movement. It’s not – it’s big. It’s a big idea piece, so yeah – it’s kind of a crazy – crazy is the word that I use a lot just to explain my life and the fact that – it’s weird to have photographers follow you around all day, and it’s weird to have people bring clothes that you wouldn’t normally wear on racks and dress you.
DANI: Oh, so you had wardrobe stuff going on.
KATY: Stylists! Yes, they came from the big city.
DANI: Oh, that is awesome.
KATY: It was pretty cool. I posed a couple teaser photos on Instagram, of you know, the rack. Here’s the clothing, and Soft Star was great, they rush-made me a pair of minimal shoes, right? Because Prevention is conventional.
DANI: Right.
KATY: Which we’re going to talk about. So to present, you know – we can talk about the making of an article for Prevention – how that goes, how do you shape your message? And I think that everyone listening is pretty familiar with my message now. How do you shape something that can be kind of radical and perhaps extreme, certainly counter-culture in many ways – how do you shape it for Prevention, which is kind of the icon of conventional health information? You know what I mean? How do you do that? Now I know. I’ve done it.
DANI: Yeah, and I’ve read it, and I just feel like it was totally your message. It’s like, almost like you didn’t have to shape it. You did a good job, if that’s what you did, because everything is just you – here’s what I think is most awesome about it is that there’s a lot of people that read Prevention. Like, total with online and their apps and everything – and paper copies, you’ve got 8 million.
KATY: I know, it’s huge.
DANI: 8 million readers, and it’s the 9th largest monthly consumer magazine in the United States, and you’re there, like, sitting on the floor, and hanging on monkey bars, and carrying a watermelon. They made you carry a watermelon.
KATY: I had to carry that watermelon for like 12 minutes! It’s like, okay, now – and I had to carry it in the same way – and they’re like, okay, now walk in like you just got in from the grocery store. And I was like, I’m not going to fake-carry groceries, because my family’s biggest pet peeve is in movies – and I’m sorry, I’m going to break the glass for you right now, people. When you watch a movie and people are carrying cups of Starbucks, they are empty.
DANI: Yep.
KATY: Actors are flinging around a 4-person tray filled with empty Starbucks cups. I was like, you can’t give the actual weight of fluid? They’re like, no, I mean, they’re waving it around like it’s nothing. I refused. So I actually loaded up my own grocery bag with my grocery load, walked up and down my street, and then walked into my house for 12 minutes.
DANI: Thank you for doing that. Again, with the authenticity. Thank you for that.
KATY: Well, it’s also like, total fake. I didn’t actually go grocery shopping.
DANI: That makes me crazy, too, when characters are carrying a bag of groceries in the movies and there’s celery sticking out of the top and they’ve got it in one hand, and they’ve got a thing in the other hand and they set it down on the counter and it’s like, there’s no way that bag would be loaded with real groceries if you did that. It’s a Styrofoam thing at the bottom with celery sticking out.
KATY: I know. I know. So that’s –
DANI: I’m glad we talked about this.
KATY: Well, you need to know behind the scenes. Behind the scenes are important. So yeah – carrying a watermelon, walking across what, my infamous foyer, which everyone is like, oh my gosh – I’m like, that’s just because we are cheap and too lazy and we go, we’ll just put rocks here, and it’s awesome! It looks awesome, and it has apparently made it into two major publications. So go with it, people. Go with it.
DANI: I have touched those rocks with my hands, people, when I’m sitting on the floor.
KATY: She did. She walked in on her hands.
DANI: And I’ll tell you right now: they’re just rocks.
KATY: They’re just rocks!
DANI: They put their pants on one leg at a time, just like you do. So anyway, this is the largest and most – I think – mainstream audience that your work has ever been presented to, unless I’m totally off-base here.
KATY: Well, I – yeah, I wouldn’t call Joe Rogan’s audience mainstream.
DANI: Right.
KATY: That’s niche. So yeah, it would be – it is definitely – the coolest thing was that people who are, I would say, more entrenched in this type of information – this – like, this information about movement. Maybe it’s even just about – I mean I have regular discussions. I take so much for granted that people think that whole foods are a healthier version than processed version. I just take all of that for granted because I live in kind of a health bubble, but that’s not the mainstream understanding. So to have people – like us, who do what we do, and are kind of online, go – “my mom just called me because she got her issue of Prevention and it’s like, she’s oh! This is what you’re talking about – I get it now!” That the information has to almost come through a mainstream source, because if not –
DANI: It does!
KATY: Yeah. It’s weird.
DANI: Yeah, like my mom – every time I’m like, hey, have you subscribed to my podcast yet, and she’s like, “what is it called again?” I’ve been doing it for two years. But then, yesterday I was talking to her on the phone and she was like, “what’s going on?” and I said, “well, this is pretty big,” and I told her about Prevention, and immediately she was like, “Oh, Prevention! Oh!”
KATY: Yeah.
DANI: Now she’ll remember the name of the podcast. When you did the Good Housekeeping thing and that was back in February.
KATY: Mm-hmm.
DANI: That was super cool.
KATY: It was.
DANI: And that was just one page.
KATY: I know.
DANI: Did you notice an uptick in subscribers on your social media, or more people writing you, or saying, hey, who are you? I’ve never heard of you. I mean –
KATY: Well, I don’t – it’s only been out for about a week.
DANI: No, but like – not this, but the Good Housekeeping one, I’m sorry. I should have clarified. Did you notice a change in that?
KATY: I don’t know. It’s really hard to say, because I don’t – I really don’t obsess over numbers, I am a little bit removed in that people can’t, you know, they’re not directly emailing me. They’re not like, “Dear Katy,” because I don’t have my email on my websites because there’s just too many people outreaching. There’s multiple people that are intercepting and maybe answering questions on my behalf sometimes, or they’re just going to the website. Like, I don’t even really track the business of my site. Like, I am so – while I think I would have the appearance of a successful entrepreneur, that’s all the byproduct of me just doing what I really like to do is just teach certain information. The fact that it’s successful in a business model is secondary. Like, it’s nothing that I spend really any time working on. So in that regard, I have no idea - where I interact with people most is on social media, and I do remember on Facebook a couple people going, “I just saw you in Good Housekeeping!” One lady, she said she was standing in line in the grocery store and had just picked up – this is the power of social media and handheld technology. She picked up Good Housekeeping and I happened to be on the last main page – a single page, full article – and she googled me from that page and she left a message for me on Facebook, going, “I’m buying the issue, and I’m all in!” Like, I can’t wait to learn all about this and this feels right to me. So in two minutes of something, it just resonated with her, so I always figure – I sat next to a guy one time who was a vice president of some business school. It wasn’t Wharton, and I don’t think it was Harvard. So it was in the top 3, though, so we had this very long conversation on our way to Boston, which seems like a non-sequitur – he was saying that he was interested in what I do, because he was interested in all the time just gathering information. And he was like, that’s interesting. To me, it’s mind-blowing, revolutionary, amazing stuff. But again – I live in a bubble that’s on the edge of another bubble, and it’s just my tiny world and what I do, so of course it’s inflated quite a bit in its importance. To him, he thought it was fascinating, but health isn’t his thing, and he was like, it’s so interesting – you can have something that’s so amazing, a solution to the world’s problems or whatever, but if you explained it to the world – say the world is this airplane – he’s like, 1/3 of the people are going to be like, yeah, that’s amazing. 1/3 of the people are going to hate what you have to say, just – no matter what you have to say. 1/3 of them will be disgruntled or hate it; they’ll have really strong negative feelings, and 1/3 is going to be indifferent.
DANI: That’s interesting.
KATY: It was. And I found – so that was his explanation of life. Like, he – and of course, his world was business. Everything was through this business bubble and how people take new ideas, and at that time I was really interested in a paradigm. I wanted to – I was actually thinking of going to business school for the purpose of – I wanted to have a concrete understanding of what a paradigm was, because I was like, how can you dismantle a paradigm if you don’t know its anatomy? So I was interested, and I don’t know – this was maybe 6 or 7 years ago – of the anatomy of a paradigm. And that might be something I revisit later on, but in the end I was like, that’s not my responsibility to know the anatomy of a paradigm. I could teach the pelvic list and be okay! So I often get a little lofty and then go back to what I do best, which is teach movement. So that was a long way to say, “I don’t know.” I assume – I assume that more people heard about it and came – as big as maybe my life and our podcast of a million download seems, in the big scope of things it’s still pretty small. I’m standing in my backyard right now. I just live a regular life. I have stones in my foyer. But that’s really about it.
DANI: But you know what? You carry real watermelons, and that’s good enough for me.
KATY: I do carry watermelons.
DANI: Did they hollow out that watermelon for you?
KATY: Yeah, they blow it out like an egg. Could you make it lighter?
DANI: Like an egg.
KATY: So yeah, I don’t know. And I don’t know about this one, either – Prevention.
DANI: It’ll be interesting – it’ll just be really interesting to see, because that is a more – people that pick up Good Housekeeping, they’re not just about their health, right? They’re about good housekeeping.
KATY: Sure!
DANI: But this is like, specifically, you know, for health. I don’t know – when did they contact you, Prevention?
KATY: Oh, gosh.
DANI: I mean, was this a long time in the making?
KATY: Months ago. Yeah, you know, magazines are long lead, so anything you see in a magazine has been worked on for 3 or 4 months, minimum. And that article went through many rewrites. They initially contacted me, like, “we want something science-y and amazing,” and at the end, they’re like, “too hard to understand! Too technical!” and the woman who does a lot of my publicity and stuff, she was like, the people going – the health mindset, the people really looking for a low-fat smoothie. That’s the level – they’re not expecting something highly technical. It’s not like listening to the Rob Wolf podcast, right? Where you’re getting this super-technical chemicals and compounds and health at that level. It’s really like – oh, move more! That’s interesting, I never thought of that! So they took me down many times at the knees. They’re like, tackle! You gotta take that out. Tackle! We gotta rewrite this. We want a story – tell your story. So it is – it’s nothing that I feel – I don’t like writing about myself. I like writing about mechanotransduction or whatever. So to be like, here’s my – I’m just – I’m not – I don’t do that naturally, but they’ve got great editors, and so they –
DANI: Yeah, it turned out really nice. In fact, I almost thought that you told that they were writing it – it’s like, an “as told to,” because –
KATY: Well, technically – so much of it, they really fluffed it up a little bit, and it’s hard because I’m in this weird place in the media now where I get attacked or criticized often – and I shouldn’t say often, but it’s happened enough where people are like, well, that’s inaccurate. And I’m like, well, like, I could – I could write super-technically all of the time, and as accurately as possible, but no one would understand it. So it loses its value of application and being – it becomes very jargon-heavy and exclusive to the few people who aren’t really intending to use it anyway, you know what I mean? And so – because I think that way, and I’ve gone that way, and I’m like, I want to be as technically accurate as possible, but you end up leaving most people behind. So it’s a line that I walk all of the time, to go, “how can I make this accessible and as correct as possible?” without going, well, you know, what I just did here, I had to simplify it a little bit, and when you simplify it you make it a little – you make it a little less accurate, but you know, where do you go? Do you – it’s like talking with your children. How technical do you want to be with your kids? Do you want them to come with you on a learning path, or do you want to just be like, sorry you don’t know the words that I’m talking about, you should have thought about that before you decided not to learn these words. Although it’s like, kind of an elitist perspective, so I try to stay jargon-free, but this was a whole different step of going, “you’re still jargon-y” and I was like, “Really? I thought that was not jargon-y.” But – you can read it!
DANI: Oh, yeah. Totally.
KATY: I’m sure there will be an online version for those of you who don’t want to get the magazine. I’m sure they’ll print it online here shortly and we can share the link in the show notes when that comes out.
DANI: Awesome.
KATY: So months ago – I just remembered that you asked me that question. Months ago, and they knew they were going ad-free. They knew it was going to be their first ad-free, and it was almost like they could finally ask me to come contribute now that it was ad-free, where it was like maybe they had some red flags against me, like, we don’t really like – our advertisers might not like your message about, you know.
DANI: Being able to treat your ailments.
KATY: You know, to take care of your own health so that you might not need these technologies later on. So who knows?
DANI: I hope they stay with that. That’s pretty cool. That’s –
KATY: All it means is, you know, in the end it means that you pay more for the magazine because –
DANI: Yeah, but it’s just kind of like – we don’t do TV-TV, but I subscribe to Hulu, because then I can watch shows when I want to watch them and whatever. But I pay the extra $5 for no commercials, because for me, that’s so worth my time in life. And my brain. I’m happy to pay more for a magazine that I don’t feel is like having to represent its advertisers as much. It’s really cool.
KATY: Yep.
DANI: Okay.
KATY: Are you playing a video game?
DANI: Me? No, I was laughing.
KATY: Are you playing Asteroids while we’re recording this? Are we recording this in 1987?
DANI: Yes. Pong. Boop. Boop. Boop. You are – there’s 5 movement vitamins, right? Or corrective exercises.
KATY: Yes.
DANI: And for me to see that, that’s like, seeing that along with you talking about the shift in the article from exercise to movement in the pages of such a widely read magazine, it’s kind of like – you haven’t read the Harry Potter things yet, right?
KATY: No.
DANI: Okay, well, everybody else has, except for you, and I feel like this magical world, you know, of being able to take care of your health and everything is being exposed to the Muggles. And those are people that are not wizards. But it’s like a good thing, because in the book the wizards want to keep their magical world hidden from the Muggles. They don’t want to freak anybody out. But I feel like the Muggles get to know this stuff, because everyone can do Wingardium Leviosa, you know, we don’t have to hide. Everyone that will read the magazine – maybe 1 or 3 out of 10 people, according to your business buddy on the way to Boston, will be like, “oh!” And I – that’s the most exciting part about this article for me. I love that you’ve got 12 pages and that you carry a watermelon, but it’s that there will be people that get to be exposed to this that may not come across that in the channels that they are in normally.
DANI: Yeah, you know, and I have to get convinced a lot to do different – you know, I’m like a non-PR kind of person. I just like my quiet life and writing books and then posting a bajillion photos to Instagram. But I have to be convinced to do PR a lot, and the woman who does my PR, Melissa, she’s amazing. And she was like, you know, she struggled a long time with different health needs for her family, and she was limited to the traditional channels of information, and she was like, “I had to bust my butt to try to get anyone to tell me anything that was different.” She was like, “It was hard for me – it was stressful. And so to have someone like you lay it out pretty easily in these mass media platforms, which you don’t always want to – it makes it easier for people who are seeking the information. And you know, you’re not doing PR to convince someone to do something that they didn’t want to already do; what you’re trying to do is put out information for the person who is trying to find it, and is expending all of this energy and stress. You’re just making it easier for them.” And so that was a good framing for me; I was like, okay. I understand that. So something else – for people like you, who are doing this – and you’re teaching these corrective exercises to other people. There’s a lot of Restorative Exercise Specialists out there trying to teach these exercises to people – there’s just not a lot of people maybe seeking them out yet. But what I also learned from a different kind of business-y type person is that everyone needs to see things 3 times before they take action.
DANI: Really?
KATY: Yeah, that it’s not like you go to one thing and go, wow, that was amazing, I’m in. very rarely does that happen. You usually see something in a magazine or someone mentions someone’s name, and when you’ve been exposed to it 3 times you’re more – that’s what it takes. It’s almost like a slow acquisition of data that you’re doing that you don’t even realize that you’re doing. So for me, this was – and for everyone else out there, especially you guys who are trying to teach this – we just dropped a million exposures, you know what I mean? We got one of them out of the way, and it was in this really light, looking for my berry smoothie recipe, like, oh, that’s interesting! So that the next time they hear about it, they’ll have a familiarity with it and they won’t even remember, really, the article. The article stands out to us because it’s people that you know and it’s concepts that you know. But for everyone else, they’re going to skim it and they’ll be like, “oh, that’s interesting” But the next time they happen to watch, you know, some news station that I’m on, you know, talking about high heels. Or if they’re at Barnes and Noble and they see Nutritious Movement the book, or they go to their physical therapist who says, “you might want to consider this,” or “go check out these blogs.” Those are the subsequent exposures, and that’s what it takes. So that’s what this really is for me, I would say, is – it did a lot of work. The magazine has legs now, and will go out and be an exposure point for people that otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed.
DANI: That’s cool.
KATY: And I don’t know what Wingardium Levosa is. What’s that?
DANI: It’s Leviosa. You’re going to have to get to it.
KATY: I’m a Muggle right? Am I a Muggle in this scenario?
DANI: You’re still a Muggle but soon you won’t be once you start reading that to your kids. They gotta get a little older I think, right?
KATY: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
DANI: Give us a little bit of the backstage thing. You had a wardrobe. They didn’t blow out the watermelon.
KATY: They didn’t blow out the watermelon. I had to clean my house – I was like, this is twice! This is twice I have had to deep clean this house! Because they’re photographing everything!
DANI: Twice! Twice in half a year! Oh my god!
KATY: Twice in six months! It’s huge! You know what life is like with small kids. And we live – we’re barefooted. Things are dirty, it’s not like – we have a dirty – we have a dirt-filled house. It’s not dirty. But it’s not magazine quality, you know. And my house is old, you know? I’ve got this old kitchen – when you look in the magazine, you’re like, oh, it looks charming, right? It’s turquoise. The colors are bright and everything, but you can see – I mean, my floors are easily 45 years old in the kitchen. It’s just old linoleum, and we haven’t re-done the kitchen. It’s just old, but again – it’s authentic. I didn’t wear makeup for the photo shoot. I didn’t have my hair done.
DANI: Oh, I was going to ask you that – they didn’t?
KATY: No.
DANI: You look awesome!
KATY: Well, thanks to my skin care regime, right? That was – I was just like, you know, I deal with this a lot – again, when you’re out in front of everybody, you’re just like, “I wish I could look just a little bit better,” but I also am okay now with – this is who I am, and there’s nothing wrong with who I am. There’s nothing wrong with an old house. You just go right into the insecurities of what drives most of the stuff we’re trying to move away from, right?
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: Like, oh, I’m not – I’m not good enough, is essentially – you can call it what you want, but “I’m not good enough” over and over again. So I’m good enough. I really am. And so I own it and then it comes out and then you’re like, oh my gosh! I should have done my hair, cut my hair. But then I was like, “why? Why?” There’s very little – I feel the same way about childbirth, where there’s so little example of the different ways that you can select to do it. You know, if you look at the media – I mean, you can find anything on YouTube, but if you look at mass media portrayals, maybe the last 300 things that I watched where a baby is being born, whether it’s a movie or a TV show – it’s just the same way, right? Someone starts going, “oh! God, it hurts, it hurts!” and then they rush to the hospital, and then like, fix it, you know? There’s not – there’s no real good examples of what a different way looks like, and I was like, well, how many health magazines are you going to pop open that show women un-Photoshopped, at 40 years old, in her old house, with no makeup and no hair – I mean, the clothes were new, and really not anything like that I would normally wear. So they did that, because they’ve got – and I was like, fine, I am going to wear minimal shoes. I won’t wear minimal shoes, and I need to be barefoot the bulk of the time, and they were fine with that. And Soft Star, again, was awesome in making me basically watermelon shoes.
DANI: Yeah, those were cute.
KATY: They were so cute.
DANI: Super cute.
KATY: And I even – and I – like, I don’t take free stuff, just in case any of you were wondering – and so I sent them the check for it, and they sent the check back. So that’s the – I’ve gotten a free pair of shoes now, but I tried to pay them and they mailed the check back to me. So I just want to say, I don’t endorse anything, I don’t take – that’s just not my jam. Watermelon jam sounds good.
DANI: Watermelon jam.
KATY: Do they make watermelon jam? Anyway.
DANI: So just another side bit; you’re talking about how it’s authentic and you weren’t Photoshoppped or anything, but that just goes to show everybody that it’s – there can be so much influence by how something is photographed?
KATY: Sure.
DANI: Because everything looks awesome, and it’s just how you are.
KATY: Well, thank you.
DANI: When I first went to your house, I had seen it with the pictures from Good Housekeeping. I assumed it was much bigger. I was just like, it’s a cottage, really.
KATY: It’s a tiny, old farm house.
DANI: You live in a little cottage, and it kind of was like, oh, wow – really, anything can be influenced by it. I mean, just look on any real estate website, and it’s like, gee, that looks huge! And then you go to the house.
KATY: You get that scope camera going.
DANI: Yeah.
KATY: It’s – I
DANI: It kind of frees everybody up, if you are worried about how something looks or whatever. It is just what it is, and of course, anything Photosopped is going to look awesome, period.
KATY: Yep.
DANI: I think you look good.
KATY: It’s just unrealistic. I live in a tiny house. I live in an old house. I drive old cars that I never paid more than $5,000 for. Like, I try to embody – I mean, I don’t try. I embody the message, you know, and the reason we do all these things is because I don’t want to sacrifice my work time – or my movement time –and these other things that I’ve prioritized a lot of changes in my life. And, anyway. Prevention. That’s me. You’re going to see me. You are going to see me in Prevention for sure.
DANI: What was your one favorite thing about the feature? Your most favorite thing?
KATY: Oh, gosh.
DANI: Whether it’s a picture or something you said, or whatever.
KATY: That’s a good – that’s a good question. As far as – the moment, I guess – seeing it tied together in a piece is kind of like when an actor says, “I never watch my movies.” I didn’t really – I looked at the piece, which was great, but I didn’t really pore over it because I got to live it. And so my favorite part of the photo shoot was, after they shot the house and the indoor stuff, they wanted to shoot some outside stuff. And I was like, well, there’s this river – we live close to the river – and I was like, we can just walk down here. And they didn’t want to walk, they were like, we can drive – so they’ve got the 2 stylists and their assistant, the photographer and his assistant and this huge van, and they didn’t want to walk, and I’m like, in bare feet, in a tank top, and we shot it a few months ago, so it was colder but I’m fine with temperature. It was just – it was a juxtaposition of me – they were here to almost photograph an animal. That’s how I felt! I didn’t feel like a model, I felt like an animal. I’m in bare feet, I’m running on the rocks and across the log, and the stylist is like, oh my god, she’s like, I could never do that. You know? Like, just – it was so weird to be with your peers in one sense, and yet not be with your peers at all in another sense.
DANI: That’s tricky!
KATY: So I felt – I felt like a foreigner. Not even a foreigner. I felt like I was in a different species for this period of when they had me walk across the log, and then squat on the log, and I was pretty high, you know, and I mean – I wasn’t going to die if I fell off, but I think they were just like, wow. I think I’d be too scared to do that. They all had thick shoes on – that was just my favorite moment of going, wow, this is what’s happening.
DANI: That’s cool.
KATY: This is a moment of similar – of – this is what my life feels like to other people. And so that was interesting. I don’t get that a lot.
DANI: That’s awesome. That’s an awesome snapshot.
KATY: It’s good to explore other cultures, even if it means just hanging out with people who don’t have the same exact furniture lifestyle as you, right?
DANI: Sure.
KATY: Right? I’m the furniture free freak.
DANI: Yeah.
KATY: What’s your favorite?
DANI: What’s my favorite? I have a sentence that was my favorite – nerd!
KATY: And, quote?
DANI: One sentence. Ok, I’m going to read it, too – “While very few of us have the luxury or desire to devote a large part of our day to exercise, we are capable of moving and repositioning our bodies in small but powerful ways 100% of our waking hours.” That’s something that you’ve said a gazillion times – to your followers, your students, your readers and listeners – but it’s possibly the first time that many or maybe all of these Prevention readers will be offered that different paradigm about movement. For me, that’s the geeky, exciting part is to think about what kind of thought process might that spark in people when they read that, and what that might open up for them in their lives and their health, and the way that they move through the world. That’s super exciting – like, a little bit of drool came out of my mouth when I read that because I was just like, mouth breathing and happy and excited.
KATY: Well, for me, that sentence – I have a – I remember that sentence in the editing process because they had edited it to say, while very few of us have the desire to devote a large part of our day to exercise. And you know – editing – it’s such a technical – you have to think of every word. And I was like, I don’t think it’s the case that people don’t have the desire. Maybe the person writing those and picking that term, “desire” did, but I feel like – I think what’s happening more is that we don’t have the luxury. I think if you asked most people what they wished they could have more time for, a lot of people would say “exercise” or “self-care” or “going outside” or “taking a walk.”
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: The desire is actually there, and I didn’t want the sentence reinforcing that people don’t really want to. I said that the problem is that people don’t have the luxury to. They don’t have the privilege to, they don’t have the income to be able to, or they don’t have the cultural permission to. So I put all of that into “luxury.” It’s a very luxurious position – freedom is pretty luxurious. So that was an edit. That was one edit that probably flies under the radar, but it was so powerful to me because I’m like, words are so important and I’m really just tuning in to how we keep telling people in magazines and newspapers not – we talked about sedentary culture. We keep saying, “you don’t want to move. You can’t move; you don’t need to move.” We just keep choosing to highlight the okay-ness or the common state of being sedentary, and I think that we’re missing what the real issue is. So anyway. That’s a different nerdy comment. We’re both nerds.
DANI: I love it. And then I love that you fought for that and that you got that word in there, because you used to annoy me so much when you’d talk about how words matter, and I would just, like, roll my eyes and be like, oh my gosh, okay! With the semantics! But now, it’s all I can think about.
KATY: Yep. Words matter.
DANI: Because it’s true – it’s true. You were right. I apologize for any eye-rolls that you never saw because we’re recording in different rooms, because it’s – it makes such a big difference.
KATY: It does, and I feel like I almost need to start with words first, because we’re using language to keep ourselves sedentary without realizing it. And so we can spend a lot of words telling people to move more, but if we’re using language that isn’t – it’s like, if we’re telling someone at the same time to move and stop, move and stop, move and stop. And so I found that actually by going through language first, that’s where the permission comes from. Because someone is not going to move if, in their mind, they’re constantly repeating a sedentary message. So I’m not doing it to be a pain in the butt; I’m doing it because I actually think that it precedes better movement.
DANI: Cool.
KATY: I think that it actually facilitates the goal, you know, that everyone has stated.
DANI: Thank you for figuring that out.
KATY: I’m a jerk, it’s true.
DANI: I have one more question. This might be kind of a stupid question, but I’m going to ask –
KATY: Define stupid. What do you mean by stupid?
DANI: Rolling my eyes.
KATY: All right, go ahead.
DANI: What do you hope will happen for people that read the article?
KATY: Oh, that’s a good question.
DANI: Is it?
KATY: That’s a great question. What do I hope? See – I’ve never – I don’t think in those terms. When I did it, I just had the intention of putting it out there, and whatever may be may be. But if I could go back and go, okay, someone’s going to go back and read it, it would be cool if someone would just be like – I guess the gist of the article is, “you might be exercising, but you might not be moving all that much, and your movement might not be nourishing you fully.” That there’s a lot of different foods that you eat – you might be moving the equivalent of a steak, but not really much other types of movements that would make a well-rounded diet. So I think the first thing would be for someone to consider how much they don’t move. That would be the first step – before you get up and investigate something on the internet would be something like, oh, that’s like looking around going, oh yeah, I guess I do sit a lot. That’s a big a-ha moment for a lot of people. And then maybe to try the exercises – there’s 5 exercises in there. It’d be really cool if they just tried them, because if they tried them, that feeling would, I think, fuel them wanting more. More of the correctives, right? So I have different layers of information. The correctives are really where I think everyone should start, but I think a lot of people jump into natural movement, like, the broader categories, like, “I’m going to start walking,” and “I’m going to start wearing minimal shoes!” But they haven’t really explored the correctives yet – but the correctives are where the mobilization of a lot of the sedentary parts come from. So I hope they go there, and then I don’t know – maybe that they talk about it with their friends and ask their friends what they think? Maybe read a couple articles and see if there’s a class or a teacher nearby, by looking online? That would be my hope is that they just consider – my hope is that they consider the idea. And the next hope is that they explore it more deeply.
DANI: That’s awesome.
KATY: And then read Move Your DNA.
DANI: Yeah. Best book ever! At least you got that. This is going to be on the newsstands – what, through mid-July? Is it a bi-monthly or is it monthly?
KATY: No, it’s a monthly magazine but monthly magazines tend to come out, ironically, 2 weeks before – because they go to the subscribers first. So you said – did you have any there? You couldn’t find one in Boulder?
DANI: I couldn’t find one in the 2 places that I looked. I’m going out again this morning to look for it.
KATY: You’re like, “I couldn’t find one under my pillow! I’ve just been walking around and one has not appeared!”
DANI: Well, if you knew anything and you weren’t a Muggle I could say that an owl didn’t deliver it, but.
KATY: Yeah, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
DANI: I gotta search more places. But – what was I going to say? Yeah, this will probably be on the stands through mid-July, I’m assuming.
KATY: Yeah, I guess that’s when the August issue comes out.
DANI: They’ll switch over to August, yeah. So go and grab it! Woo-hoo!
KATY: Yeah, it’s kind of fun. It’s kind of fun.
DANI: I’m proud of you. I’m just proud that you get to – I know you’re just doing what you do, carrying watermelons and whatnot. But I just feel excited that more people might be exposed to this kind of thought. Like you said – just to consider it.
KATY: Consider it. And that’s really why I do this type of PR, I think, is because I think it supports those of you who are living it, and are feeling resistance in your regular lives because of it. It’s almost the way that I can contribute to making the ideas less radical. Right?
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: It is automatically less radical now, which is crazy to think about, that a magazine or a publication – I mean, it’s the power of words and it’s always been the power of publications, right?
DANI: Right, there’s a lot to do with cultural shift, through media.
KATY: Cultures are definitely shaped. We all learned about it in elementary school, right, how newspaper headlines were used to get people to behave in particular ways, and I don’t think that’s gone away. We’re just – we learn about it in school like it’s something that used to happen. Like, “this was how people used to do in the ‘20s; they were so gullible!” or whatever. But instead of saying: this is how it works. You just – you’re shaped by information, so to get to throw a little bit of information out there that’s different than what’s always out there. I think that it allows everyone to be more informed and make choices better.
DANI: Yeah, it’s true. Very exciting stuff.
KATY: Yeah. Well, thanks! Do you want me to send you a copy? I can send you a copy. Does everyone out there want me to send you a copy?
DANI: I’ll look and look and look and then I’ll bug ya if I can’t find one. Boulder’s a big enough place. I’ll find one. And you know – you can let Foghorn Leghorn know that I enjoyed his interjections throughout. Now where is he? Now that we’re closing out, where is he to do the outro?
KATY: Where are they? You say, “he” as though I have one rooster.
DANI: Oh, you have more than one rooster?
KATY: I have five.
DANI: What? Are you insane?
KATY: I – we have a lot of roosters. And I get them from my sister as peeps with their mom, and so we don’t know what they are. And so the first group came and we have totally free range, wild-ish chickens. They put themselves to bed if they wish, they sleep in trees. They’re pretty wild. They’re not wild at all. My daughter walks roosters around in her arms. But I should say that they’re physically capable, meaning they can sprint and they can outrun predators all the time, and we haven’t had to deal with loss of chickens, so we just have a whole lot of roosters. I don’t know! I don’t know why we happen to be so fortunate – are we fortunate? Or do we have super strong chickens?
DANI: Maybe it’s because you have the roosters. I don’t know.
KATY: Who knows? It’s a flock of roosters.
DANI: It’s brave.
KATY: It’s not that fun for the two hens. They’re getting kind of overworked if you know what I mean, and so we have to – I’m constantly out there having discussions with the roosters, like, “Okay, guys, come on. Come on.” And it’s a pecking order –
(Ding!)
DANI: Ahhhh!
KATY: There’s so many chicken puns I could do right now, but if you have chickens you just know.
DANI: You live the puns.
KATY: I have babies. We have two babies from one mama, and this other mama – we got her to adopt 3 other babies because the other mom had abandoned them, and so it just looks like one of the two babies is a rooster, and the three other babies are rooster. So I don’t know what’s going to happen. I feel like it’s going to be a noisy podcast going forward.
DANI: Yeah, or some good eating in the winter.
KATY: Yes. Well, okay, let’s not belabor the chicken stories.
DANI: No, let’s not.
KATY: Thanks to you, Dani, for – I hope people enjoyed this breakdown of Prevention. It’s nice to know behind the scenes a little bit.
DANI: It is!
KATY: What’s going on, so thanks to you guys for listening, and for more information, books, online classes, etcetera, you can find Katy Bowman – that’s me – at NutritiousMovement.com, and you can learn more about –
DANI: Really? Did you forget my name?
KATY: You’re supposed to fill it in!
DANI: Oh! Me! Okay!
KATY: Let’s try this again. You can learn more about –
DANI: Dani Hemmat, move -
KATY: Movement Warrior – no, just say your name!
DANI: I wish I were a celebrity and I could think smarter.
KATY: You can learn more about Dani Hemmat, slow on the uptake, at MoveYourBodyBetter.com.
DANI: Bye!
KATY: Bye!
We hope you find the general information on biomechanics, movement, and alignment informative and helpful – but it is not intended to replace medical advice, and should not be used as such.
SHOW NOTES:
http://www.prevention.com/fitness/nourish-your-body-through-movement
