249: Casey Zavaleta on Setting Strength Training Goals with Intuitive Eating

Casey Zavaleta is a strength coach, fitness educator, and nutritional therapy practitioner based in Toronto, ON. She began her career with Toronto FC in the High Performance Department where she created programs to improve athletes' high performance habits. As a personal trainer, she has found a passion for leading and coaching women to engage with fitness for better reasons than changing their body size. She is currently an educator with DTS Fitness Education, where she is the lead developer for DTS Habits Coach, a course that teaches trainers to help their clients improve their habits and change their beliefs about themselves.

As a former dancer, Casey struggled for many years with my body image and disordered eating, and learned to define my worth based on how my body looked. After educating herself and doing countless hours of internal work, Casey came to a deep understanding that wellness is about much more than external markers such as the size of our bodies or the amount of weight we can lift in the gym. In this episode we help you explore what it looks like to set strength training goals for yourself that still honor and respect your Intuitive Eating mindset and practice.

In this episode we discuss:

• How Casey evolved to become a strength coach that practices in an IE aligned way and how she made that shift.
• Tangible examples of what it means to stop obsessing about how we want to look and start focusing on how we want to feel.
• Examples of what it looks like to set goals that are strength based that aren’t geared specifically towards weight loss 
• Questions you can ask yourself to help navigate the tricky part of movement routines of creating a habit and being motivated to move your body.
• How Casey personally navigates being intuitive with her exercise routine while also progressing towards goals.
• Casey’s podcast, How Do You Feel Podcast and her work.
• How Casey practices wellness without obsession.

Learn more about Casey:

• Listen to How Do You Feel: Apple Podcasts
• Find Casey on Instagram: @caseymzav
• Register for DTS Habits Coach: dtsfitnesseducation.com

Click here to download our free e-book, How to Eat for Hormones.

Resources for you:

• Learn more about our services at Nourishing Minds Nutrition. Read testimonials from our amazing clients here. 
• Join our FREE support group for like-minded women, the Nourishing Women Community for more community & support.
• Take a look at our online shop, the Wellness Without Obsession Shop.
• Join the waitlist for our new program coming in May, Get Your Period Back Playbook.

Let’s hang out! Connect with Victoria and the staff at NMN:

• Victoria’s Instagram
• Victoria’s Website
• Nourishing Minds Nutrition Instagram
• Nourishing Minds Nutrition website

For every guest that comes on the show, we donate money to Loveland Foundation. The Loveland Foundation, a foundation that provides therapy and  healing to Black women and girls. We are honored to donate monthly to the Loveland Foundation, and you can learn more and donate yourself here.