I am joined by MetPro client, Eliotte Woodford. We are going to be discussing Eliotte's MetPro journey and her transformation. Thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to chat with you.
I am so excited to have you here. I am curious. If you go back in time, what made you decide MetPro is going to work for you? What was that like?
I had my first child. It feels very new to me. He’s still a baby but he's like a toddler running around so it blows my mind. I am naturally a tall person and larger hold muscle pretty easily. I'm a professional dancer. I've always been in this position where I've generally felt and been used to being bigger compared to the people I'm usually compared to. It’s probably the best way to put it. In a normal world, probably not.
I had a very, thank the Lord, healthy pregnancy, labor and child. I was fine and able to work out my entire pregnancy and get back to working out normally after I got clearance from my doctor. I felt it was in a good place. I don't feel like I gained a lot of weight during pregnancy or something like that. I felt unlike myself. We were also moving when I was 7 or 8 months pregnant across the country.
It wasn't a move down the street. It’s across the country.
We were building a house and also it wasn't ready because of COVID everything got delayed. We thought it was going to be a few months and ended up being ten months total. It was a little stressful. We could have had it much worse. I'm trying to count my blessings and I was at the time but the finish line kept moving. With the timeline and not knowing what was going to happen, my parents were very gracious so my husband and I and shortly after I gave birth to my son, James, we were all at my parent’s house, waiting for our house to be finished.
At first, it was wonderful. That was the plan. We're going to have all the extra hands on deck to help out and all the extra love. It was lovely and all the things. Eventually, our house was ready and at that point, when we moved away from the extra hands and extra help and it was truly me and my husband and the baby, we were exhausted.
Normally, I do like to cook but there was no energy for that from either one of us, even if I were to do the cooking, my husband's like, “We have to clean up.” It’s the things that go along with cooking your food in a normal world. In our pre-baby life, it was fine. We would order in a lot and all that stuff. I felt like I gained weight from that period. Not from pregnancy or COVID.
I was putting on weight in a way that I only noticed because as a dancer, I'm very in tune with my body. I love working out. I was still working out but I knew that the food nutrition aspect of my health journey was off. I didn't know necessarily how to do it in a way that would produce results that would be scientific and healthy at the same time. I didn't want any gimmicks or quick fixes. I needed something to be simple because my bandwidth as a new mom was not wide. I'm a long-time fan and listener of The Clip Out, which is another podcast that you may know, Crystal.
When I heard about you talking about MetPro and you had, at that point, been talking about it for a while, that information was being absorbed into my mind. At some point, I was like, “Maybe I'll look into this.” From what they're saying and I'm hearing, it sounds like it checks all those boxes. I looked into it, had conversations at my consultation, felt good about it and talked it over with my husband. There's a financial commitment.
I was like, “I feel like I should try this. It seems like it lines up with something that is based in science and therefore, it will be good for my body and hopefully will produce results.” We agreed. “Let's try it out and do it.” I've lost 36 pounds. I couldn't lose that much that quickly. I was like, “It's still coming off.” It's been a very interesting journey.
When you're working with a coach, what is the MetPro experience been like? What does it feel like when you're losing weight that fast?
Losing weight is encouraging and exciting. I didn't expect it to happen like how it has happened. I'm very pleasantly pleased and surprised. The experience has been great. It's been everything I needed it to be and hoped it would be. My bandwidth was not a lot and I needed something to be easy but I wanted it to give me direction that I could turn too quickly in my frazzled moment with not a lot of time. It's been that. The app has been very helpful with any plan changes or anything like that. I will make my little meals and save them on the app so I can turn to them quickly and make them. That in itself is what I needed.
I needed someone to tell me what to do and when. The simplicity of that was very helpful. I could open my app and do that. If I had a question, I could turn to my coach and ask the question. With that, I felt like I had direction. Anytime there was a question mark, it could be answered. I do what the plan tells me. I don't have to think about it. I'm busy with the baby and other things in life. I do the plan and start to eat what I am eating, make it, eat it and I'm done. I have had my typical workouts and haven't changed too much of anything about what I've been doing there. It's been happening. I haven't done anything outside of that.
When you say that you have questions that are able to be answered easily and quickly, have you felt that your coach was able to direct you in a way that was specific or unique to you?
Yes. My coach is Coach Kat, whom I'm obsessed with. I love her. She's great and amazing. It also goes back even to my initial conversations with MetPro in terms of matching me up with her. I didn't know it at that time but she was exactly who I needed at this stage of my life. She also has young children. She has that background of that knowledge. In our conversations, she's always like, “How is it going?” I was like, “He's screaming in the background because he's not down for a nap. Please ignore that.” She's like, “I'm hiding in the closet.” I was like, “Look at us together.”
We can relate on that level. It's been helpful. I'm out from stopping breastfeeding so for most of my journey, I've been breastfeeding. Her personal and professional knowledge of that has been great in terms of how she was changing my plan every few days and how I could go with carbs that wouldn't affect my breast milk supply. That was helpful. I never had an issue with that.
I was fueled enough to produce that energy for the day and still do my workouts and anything else I needed to do. Even some other knowledge, she was like, “When this happens, you're going to feel like this which might affect this based on your hormone stage. Your kid might be going through this milestone so be prepared for this.” She's been helpful in that way. Having that personal knowledge in addition to her professional knowledge has been very helpful. I look forward to her.
Kat has an excellent sense of humor. I'm sure that's helpful as well.
We have a good time. We talk about the plan for a little bit and get other things.
It's nice that we have so many coaches with so many different backgrounds and personalities. Our onboarding coaches are registered dieticians and nurses. They do such a great job of pairing people up with who they need. I love hearing that. I am curious though. When you talk about being a professional dancer, being a mom and moving into this house, how are you fitting it all in? There's still a lot to it.
Honestly, I'm still learning. God bless my husband. This is my first time being a mom. I didn't know what to expect. I consider myself a very strong, intelligent person that can handle a lot. I feel like I had a tough 2021, not feeling like myself, having a little bit of postpartum depression and mourning the loss of freedom that comes with becoming a parent. I was used to having a very free and busy life, which changes when you have a newborn. I’m trying to find that balance. I feel like I'm in a better place. Feeling like I lost myself and didn't know what to do to make my body feel like myself.
My mind can feel like itself and so on and so forth. I'm grateful for everything that MetPro has led me to. I feel healthier in my body and have that regular routine and something that is set up for me. I don't have to think too much about it. I can do what it says. I'm eating the way I like to eat, which I didn't expect. I remember when I first started, I was like, “I have my plan. Let's look at what I can eat. I bet it's nothing.” That's what I was thinking. I was like, “I have all my favorite foods.” My breakfast is my favorite thing. I get my avocado toast. I'm obsessed and happy. I was like, “This is great.”
I eat the same breakfast every day. I don't have avocado toast but I have oatmeal with almonds and almond milk. Sometimes I throw in strawberries and I am so happy.
I love the berries, fruit and nature's candy. It works out.
It's so funny how we all get stuck on whatever breakfast though. It tends to be that's what people love. Whatever their breakfast is, they stick with that every day.
I'm like, “It's good. I'm happy about it. I look forward to it.”
If I'm hearing you correctly with the structure that MetPro provides the direction, that's how you're able to get it all done. What about you feeling like, “We don't have the energy to wash the dishes, do the cleanup and the cooking?” Is that like, “We're doing this for a bigger purpose so it changes that level of energy,” or does some of that energy come back as your son has gotten a little bit older?
It might be more of the latter, honestly. As he becomes more independent, I can do more but what's been helpful even with MetPro is balancing our food as a family. My husband's doing it so are my mom and my sister. I was like, “What's happening?” We're doing that. You need Coach Kat. She's your girl.
If you all have a meal together, you can easily make it MetPro.
I don't have to explain anything to anyone anymore. I’m like, “I'm measuring out my things over here. I have my chicken prep.” My mom's like, “I'm bringing my rice cakes.” We all can talk the same language, which is wonderful. My son is eating real food. It allows me with the awareness I have about what makes a good meal. I transfer that with how I'm feeding him. Even the foods and products that we have on hand are great whole healthy foods. I can feed him and he likes those foods.
That's been great with my journey with that. As a new mom or a new parent, you're like, “What am I supposed to feed this kid? When? How much? How long?” When I'm eating, I feed him. He has his 3 meals and 2 snacks. Let's be honest, he's eating the whole time, growing toddlers. That's helped me to get rid of that anxiety I had about how am I supposed to feed him. I'm like, “I’ll make him a little smaller bowl of chicken, rice and veggies.” It's been helpful since I have all the food prepped. I make him a little side bowl and cut it into pieces that are appropriate for him. It's been easy. He loves those foods. He loves broccoli, tomatoes and avocados. It's been great in that way.
Does he take your avocado toast every morning?
He wants all my food. He wants what we're eating. My husband will tell you, “Never eat off my plate.” That's been great. That structure has been amazing, not only for me but for all of us. There’s another mom hack that I've been doing, which is an added cost but I needed it to be successful. I have a prep company that preps my proteins.
I have cooked chicken breast and some lean ground beef. Sometimes I get a sweet potato as well. That's one thing I don't have to do. Maybe once we get a little more freedom, I'll go back to cooking my proteins but to have that, it's easy to measure it out on a plate. With my veggies, I'll have groceries delivered a few days whenever I need them to keep those fresh. We're going through a lot of those foods.
With all of you eating that way, which is great that you're all eating that way.
Having that little hack where I can have things prepped easily. I had my lunch before we started talking and I was able to whip that together quickly. Had I not had all that prepared in my Tupperware in the fridge, it’s been harder but I can open my app. “How much of this? How much of that?”
What a fantastic hack. Is that a place that does meal servings? Is this locally that somebody does this? Is this a company that provides meals and ships them to you?
The company that provides meals and ships to me also does the bulk option. I use Trifecta. You can do it in bulk. I do the chicken, some beef and sweet potato. That's in my fridge. I don't have to think about it. I have a few dry spices and hot sauce but it's not hot at all. It's more a very flavorful sauce made of peppers, garlic and onion that I put on things. It's delicious.
What is that because that sounds good?
It's an Austin-based company. They were also featured on the show, the Hot Ones. They have multiple but the one I like is Jala Pepa. I put that on anything and everything. I have some other ones that are good too but I order that in full because it's amazing. Savir Foods makes the hot sauce. It goes with anything and everything. It's delicious. Learning to use things like cinnamon to make something sweet or using the Worcestershire sauce and then add some stuff to it.
In my cut where I didn't have many carbs/any carbs, I put everything on a bed of salad greens and some cucumber and made it a salad bowl. It still felt like I was eating something other than nothing. I was satisfied. I made a stir fry and use some of the protein with the egg whites. I still had either chicken or beef mixed with rice and broccoli on the bed of greens. There are all these little hacks. It's great.
One of my favorites is to take a taco and make it into a taco salad with lean ground beef. You put the taco seasoning in, a little bit of cheese and a whole bunch of lettuce. It's so good.
I'm not eating things that I don't want to be eating, aren't tasty, aren't good for me or are some quick fix. People were like, “Don’t eat anything and then you'll be losing weight.” I'm like, “That is not correct.” I love that MetPro knows that and has the science behind it. It backs it up. “I need to light my metabolism so I'm going to be eating food.”
Eating more revs your metabolism and makes you feel good. If you are a dancer like yourself, you have so much energy you're burning. You need that energy to be your best. When it comes to the transformation itself, how did that come to be? How has that worked for you?
It's been great. The schedule and the structure that the meal plan has provided give me structure everywhere else in my life. That's where I felt fuzzy and cloudy in my mind. I feel like I have a good general knowledge of fitness, health, the body and things like that. I knew that my nutrition was not the correct thing, even in times of my life, I was like, “I know I'm eating healthy.” It's not like I'm eating poorly. I knew that was the reason. Maybe I wasn't meeting some of the goals I wanted to meet. I don't know what I'm doing wrong or what's going on with my body.
I always had this opinion of my body that is incorrect and not the healthiest like, “I don't lose weight. This is my body and what it looks like.” I generally had the same shape my entire life. It wasn't like there was anything wrong with my body. If I wanted to lose weight, my body didn't want to lose it. I'm pretty sure nutrition is the issue but I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's portion control, timing or what it was. That's why I was like, “I'm going to try this out. They seem to know what they're doing.”
It worked. In that process, it's also healed my opinion of not only my body but what I thought of food and its relation to my body. The concept of not thinking about certain foods as good or bad is a huge thing. I'm going to even try to do that with my son. I don't want to label food as good or bad. There's a whole psychological issue and drama that goes along with that. I try not to do that. Knowing like, “I'm choosing to eat this meal off plan. I’m going to have this cookie or adult beverage.” That's fine. I'm making that choice. I'm not going to beat myself up about it.
The next time it's time for me to eat, I'll be on plan. Having that mindset and self-talk has been very helpful. It allowed me to continue to be successful. Sometimes, we can get into those spirals where we beat ourselves up like, “I hate that bad thing.” Everything is out the window. “This isn’t going to work.” You quit. I'm like, “Nope, I'm eating this.” I made a decision to do that and that's okay.
It's that shame spiral that gets going. You can't get out of it.
Even my body was ready for that. I wouldn't even see a change in my body. If I went up with water weight, it readjusted itself a day later. It's not a big deal.
I feel like it makes a huge difference when you strategize for going off plan and how you're going to approach it. I feel like it makes a huge difference other than being like, “I'm going to eat whatever I want when I want.” We do get in that shame spiral. I then continue to make bad choices and I feel worse. It keeps going.
It's allowed me to be like, “I'm allowed to do this and that's okay.” It's fine. I can be proud of where I'm at, the journey I'm on and what's been happening. My body will be fine. It's not that big of a deal. I'm going to have this and be happy about it. That's a different place than where I used to be, mentally. I love that aspect of it as well.
I'm curious, do you travel a lot for your job?
In a normal world, I do. Based on the timing and age of my son, everyone would probably figure out he's a COVID baby. The world went on pause. My job slowed down in terms of my travel. I was like, “This might be the appropriate time to see if we can have a child.” We did. Things have come back. Normally, I'm traveling and usually performing all around the world, on a lot of tours and doing things like that. Everyone knows that those are the first things that went and the things slowly coming back.
As that starts peaking up and with the people and artists I work with, hopefully, that will get back. I have been traveling to work for certain jobs when I've been needed. With my schedule and having a new child taking him with me has been a new experience. That in itself is a whole another episode. We can dive into that. I was learning that, trying to travel and being smart about my food. I got a travel body weight scale, which I learned existed from this show. I got one of those.
They are super helpful whenever you want to stay accountable when you're traveling.
I didn't know it existed. I was very glad to learn.
I didn't know until I had this job. It was new information for me too. How do you handle the food portion of things when you're gone all the time? That can be very challenging.
For example, I had to travel and teach an intensive. I was talking to Kat, “I have this particular protein bar.” It's extremely clean. I'm a big fan of it. She was like, “That's going to be 1 protein and 1 carb in terms of your plan.” I was like, “Great. I can build the rest of my meals.” That's packable and non-perishable. I could make my lunch and snacks. My snacks in nature are more portable. It's more than the meals I was worried about. I was able to build those, put them in my little reusable bags, throw those in my dance bag and had those on hand.
When I'm working, what snacks, what ratio, the amount I'm supposed to have and when is very helpful to know. If I'm traveling in a broader sense, thinking ahead of where I need to get stuff if I need to, whether that's at a local grocery store or Bodega if I'm in New York. One of the hacks people forget is the stores within the airport at your destination. Hitting up that store, not the one where you leave from but at your destination.
On my way out, I'll grab a whole bunch of water bottles because I drink a lot of water. I will grab hard-boiled eggs if they have them and any other things that make sense on the plan that I didn't bring with me. I already have certain nuts or snacks in my bag. I always check those out or make a note like, “I need to see if the stores have this before I leave the airport.” That way it saves me a trip. I can go straight to the hotel. If you can request a food-safe fridge be put in your room because that is different than some of the beverage fridges, that's good to know. I've done a lot of hotel living.
Always having a good funnel is also another good hack like a silicone funnel. If you ever need to put any protein powder into a water bottle on the go or something like that, that's a good hack to have. I was trying to make it work. Time management and planning are what you have to think as we already know if you're a MetPro client. If you're doing your food prep, you're thinking ahead, “What's my day tomorrow? What food do I need to pack ahead?” I prepped my workout clothes so I get an early morning workout. I had my protein prepared and my breakfast and snacks ready to go. I was out all morning. I had everything on me, came back, made lunch and then we're talking.
Your organization makes my heart so happy.
That's not every day. I don't want to sound like I got it together. Think ahead and know what I need to prep so I can continue to be successful. This goes for everyone in anything. If something happens and it can't be successful, what good choices can I make that are second best? If I can't be exactly on the plan, what can I have that is still a smart decision? From there, step down and be like, “I'm choosing to be off plan for this meal or snack.” Being okay with that and knowing the next time it's time to eat, I'm back on plan and I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Deciding which of those tiers are going to work for you and doing that.
You have worked on your health goals. You have either achieved them or you're well on your way to achieving them. Is there anything MetPro has done that has influenced your life besides that?
It opens new possibilities in terms of what I thought my body was capable of. I didn't think it was capable of this. It causes me to be curious about what else is possible if my body was able to do this by changing one element, which is my nutrition. My meal plan hasn't been, in my opinion, drastic in any way in terms of how I was eating before or what kinds of foods I was eating. I've been doing nothing and the weight has been coming off. It does make me curious about what is possible. Kat and I have talked about coming up doing a strength cycle and building out certain areas. It's encouraging a sense of, “If I can do this, what else is possible?”
That is the most exciting feeling because as we get older, especially when we have kids, it becomes so much about them necessarily.
They do need us. They are small humans and can't do anything.
You lose a little bit of that sense of curiosity of what else can you do to continue to grow and improve yourself. I love hearing that. That is so fabulous. I'm excited for you to see how the strength goes and what you do next with that. What would you say your favorite aspect of MetPro has been for you?
It’s the fact that I don't have to think. I do what I'm doing so bad. It's the fact that I'm given a plan and all I have to do is follow it. That's all I have to do. How to follow it is simple. I make my little meals, eat them and go about my life. Even if I hadn't lost all this weight, I still would've counted it as a success because it's allowed me to have a better relationship with food, not only in my body but mentally and psychologically speaking, having that better relationship with it and not beating myself up about having that cookie.
I was like, “I'm going to log it and then move on.” I don't want to call it cheat meals because I feel like that language is incorrect. I haven't even had that many because I haven't wanted to. It's been easy enough that I've been able to stay on plan even if I'm somewhere. If I'm at a Mexican food restaurant, you can get the fajitas. There's your chicken and veggies. Depending on the size, you can adjust those based on what plan you're on. I haven't needed to have to go off plan that much. It’s the ease of it and not having to think about what am I eating because it's time. I’m able to run around with my son or be out and about if that's the day. I feel like that’s the best thing. I wanted it to be simple and work.
What would you say the biggest lessons you've learned from this experience are then?
The body is a magical thing, which I already knew. The metabolism within health culture speak gets thrown around a lot. You see things on the product, “This is going to speed your metabolism or do that.” Being someone that's in this industry, you hear language like that all the time. The fact that MetPro approaches metabolism and looks at it for what it is made to do within our body makes all the difference.
We know we're not trying to hack our metabolism, change it or take this fat burner and make it do this. We're trying to give good food when it needs food so it's going to keep your body alive and do its job. That is the motivating factor. Having that aspect of it has been grounding like, “It's about this. It's going work and heal your metabolism in that sense.” Getting you away from the diet culture is about giving your body the fuel that it needs to be itself and be healthy.
Eliotte, I have to thank you so much for your time. I have enjoyed it more than you will ever know. Before you go though, where can people find you if you would like to be found?
I'm on Instagram. You can find me @EliotteNicole. I sometimes post what's going on in my life, stuff about work and some cute pictures of my son.
You can find all of the MetPro method episodes anywhere you get podcasts or you can go to MetPro.co/Podcast. Please be sure to follow the show and rate and review. That lets other people know what they can expect. You can learn more about MetPro at MetPro.co. I will be back next episode. Until then. Remember, consistency is key.
