00:05
Hey guys, this is Ryan Alford. Welcome to the Radical Company podcast. It's podcast Tuesday. I have to name the day that it is every time, Erica. It's like, I usually go to Podcast Fridays. Even though when you listen to podcasts, it can be any day that you listen to it. But I have to distinguish the day we recorded. Today's podcast Tuesday, we're headed to Charleston for a little trip. I am super pumped because-

00:32
excited to have you on.

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speaker, fitness pro, just coaching.

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We said this pre-episode, we know each other, but don't know each other. We know, following a lot of the same people, following each other on social media. It's like the beauty of social media. I know, yeah. We run around in the same circles, online and in Greenville, but yeah, it's good to finally meet you and get to have a good conversation. Yeah, it's...

01:07
digital world.

01:13
of getting together and having some, I'm having water rather than you're having coffee. I'm having coffee, for sure. Yeah. So we're gonna get into Erica's story. We'll talk some Clemson Tiger stuff, since both being Clemson grads, which is cool.

01:39
So new season starting in a month. Yeah. So are you looking forward to it? I'm looking forward to it, but I'm not even there yet. So like. Season six. Yeah, so like I was telling you, I just discovered Game of Thrones. Well, let me back up. People have been telling me about Game of Thrones for years.

01:56
that person's like I can't watch a lot of TV I don't have time blah blah blah so I was putting it off and then literally just found it probably three this is embarrassing probably three weeks ago and have binge watched it and now I'm

02:22
So I have to you definitely Khaleesi. She's been my favorite from day one. She's just a woman in power And then John snow, I mean who can't love Johnston he's like the golden boy Like when I first started watching Patriarch of the family

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That was the first real left turn for me. Because when I was watching it, he seemed like such an iconic figure. That's what's so great about the series. I was like, he's going to be, this is going to be our guy. The whole time, yeah. He was just so genuine and like even amongst all the thing, you know, not so much. I know, exactly. Spoiler alert, if you haven't watched it yet, don't fall in love with Ned too much. I know. It's crazy how that show like, kill off main characters left and right. Yeah.

03:13
people tell me about that, but I did not accept to that extent.

03:20
little bit. I'm definitely more of a Clemson football girl, but when I was at Clemson I was a cheerleader there, cheered for both teams. So I do keep up with Clemson basketball a little bit.

03:37
their seasons have been fluctuating the past couple of years. We've lost a few of my favorites. So, I don't know. We'll see how...

03:48
watch and cheer them on.

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history.

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Peace.

04:24
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I have a business that's really a personal brand and it's developed into a multifaceted business where I speak, I am also a fitness trainer and use my motivational speaking, I guess, talents to empower women on their health and wellness journeys as well. So it's kind of those two interests that I have.

04:48
started really way back. I don't know if everybody starts their story when they were six months old but mine starts back then. When I was six months old I was diagnosed with cancer in my eyes. It was a very rare cancer and they ended up treating it with radiation instead of chemotherapy just because they couldn't really treat babies with my type of cancer with chemo. So treated it with radiation and it worked. I've been cancer-free for ever 20 years now which is awesome.

05:20
super damaging to the body and so I've been experiencing progressive vision loss throughout my life. So I guess just to break down my vision for people who aren't very familiar with vision loss, progressive vision loss is like my vision was better five years ago than it is today and it's better today than it most likely will be five years down the road. So it's always changing and fluctuating and it's progressively getting worse.

05:48
So that's kind of my message that I use to empower others through my business. I work a lot in the disability space and teach people to love themselves no matter what. Having a disability doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you. It's just something, it's just a barrier like anyone else is going to have that you have to overcome.

06:09
It's cool because I get to also use that in health and wellness breaks as well. And especially with women loving themselves, having that...

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and a lot of shame that I've experienced over the years. And so I get to use kind of my story and my knowledge with that and helping women love themselves, love their bodies and create a lifestyle that they really love. Yeah, is where does the fitness, I know that's so key in your messaging. Yeah. Where did that passion come from? I'm just saying, you know, we have a lot of similar interests.

06:56
So I was a cheerleader at Clemson. Before that, I was a competitive gymnast. So grew up super hardcore gymnast, was planning on going to Olympics. In gymnastics, you kind of age out of the sport. If you don't make it to the Olympics before like age 16 to 18, you're out. You've kind of lost your peak. So I got super close to that. I was competing at an elite level with that. But then I started approaching my college years and kind of re-navigated back.

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into cheerleading because it's very similar. I knew I had the skills to kind of transfer into that sport.

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be on the team. So I think it really stems from that. Growing up I think it was really just an outlet for me. I was you know I could control how much work I put in to athletics and and now into fitness and that was kind of an outlet for me since I couldn't really control my health or my vision.

07:58
where it stems from.

08:04
You know they hear...

08:11
I say one sense kind of goes away and others pick up more. Yes. So I have curiosity. I've always wondered this about you, like vision deteriorating. But has it made you more?

08:28
short. So definitely listening and just being aware, auditorily and then physically. Like I feel like I am physically more aware of my surroundings and I think that my athletic ability and just growing up being an athlete and always being strong and into fitness and coordinated has tremendously helped me with being able to navigate safely with vision loss and all of that stuff. So definitely hearing. I'm like

08:56
So I can't recognize people's faces because of just my vision. If I pass sitting right here, if I didn't know it was you that was speaking to me, I wouldn't know it was you, just because I can't see your face. Right.

09:09
the best voice recognition ever. Like anybody. Now that's radical. Yep. Best voice recognition. I mean, somebody can pass me on the street and say, hey, Erica, how are you? And I don't know who they are visually. But if I can get one more sentence out of them, I can figure out who they are just by their voice. I wonder. I was like, it's got to pick up some.

09:43
I typically do online virtual training because I travel a lot with speaking, so I can't be in the gym training clients all the time, you know, scheduled each week. So the virtual training has kind of given me a way to be able to train from wherever I am. And so I send, it's basically video based and I'll record.

10:03
videos for that week and send them their videos and then their PDF of their workouts and send them their PDF of their meal plan for the week. It's a cool way to be able to stay in touch with them and have that close trainer relationship with them but not have to be in the gym right there with them. And a lot of them also like it because on their end because they don't have to schedule a time to meet with them.

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Friday at 7 a.m. while if little Sadie gets sick and can't come to the gym at 7 a.m. they can do their workout whenever.

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It started really local, just, you know, obviously friends and referral-based, but now...

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this five week challenges where I'll get women.

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and go through basically a health and wellness program for five weeks and that is it's very regimented. I mean we're all going through it together and kind of cheering each other on and keeping each other accountable but that has reached people all over the U.S. which has been awesome. So I'm about to start round two of that next Monday. How do you keep up with new exercises, meal plans, like what's like

11:21
Yeah, that's a good question because whenever you go through your personal training certification or your nutritionist certification, it's just like the knowledge, but then there's no follow-up. It's like school, you get the knowledge, but then it changes all the time. Exactly. So I think just being passionate about it, I'm always listening to podcasts or reading the newest article. And of course, my social media feed is like all the experts on health and wellness. I'm just kind of taking in all the new stuff on a daily basis and seeing what other people are doing and then seeing how I can kind of...

11:51
that to fit with my clients and to fit with my message because a lot of in the fitness world a lot of it's about appearance you know weight loss so you can have flat abs and look hot for summer like whatever and yeah that's everyone's goal but there's also a huge component to fitness that i like to say it's more than what meets the eye and that kind of ties in with my message of vision loss like feeling healthy is so much more beneficial than just looking thin or looking

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to mesh the two.

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One of those really weird people who love high intensity training. So like people hate burpees. I love burpees. I love any type of workout where like at the end of it, I'm sweating my heart.

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favorite health foods and then maybe your favorite cheese. Oh for sure. Favorite health foods, I am like on an acai bowl kick right now. Okay. Love it because it tastes like a treat but it's healthy. Yep. But of course like my day-to-day stuff usually looks like some type of lean meat and veggies. Meal prep. Meal prep. Are you a meal prepper? Try to meal prep as much as possible. It's hard with travel and I know you travel a lot so it's hard with travel but yeah try to meal prep as much as possible. But

13:18
I'm not a believer in how I train my girls. I'm just staying macro minded. So not counting your macros, because that can be very tedious. It's for some people, and it can give you a lot of flexibility. But if you can just have in the back of your mind what macros you want to hit, and not necessarily count them.

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protein and a lot of carbs for breakfast, maybe I'm going to not have as many carbs for dinner. That type of thing, it can give you a lot more flexibility in your diet. So that's what I kind of like to do. But the- Who would have thought something like this?

13:55
Somebody's selling a good program.

14:00
South Beach diet, Matkins, and now Keto, which I've been doing.

14:06
I like you. That's what I was going to ask you. This is my second go round with it. You know, and I look, I can eat.

14:19
Once I'm on keto, I stop craving carbs, and it makes me just feel better. I don't know, and I did it for eight weeks, eight to 12 weeks last summer, towards the end of the summer, and I dropped like 15 pounds. And I'll gain and lose weight pretty easily. It's both a blessing and a curse, but I could drop it easy, but I could also throw on 10 pounds in three days. You can literally, if I ate just whatever I wanted.

14:47
go from like 225 to 235. Oh wow. Yeah.

14:54
It doesn't drop in three days, but in seven or eight days, it can drop 10 pounds too. Yeah.

15:02
video.

15:06
You almost don't feel hungry. It's a strange thing, but I like it. But there's just, back to the point, there's so many fads. You know, like, do you just, do you ignore them? Like, being a coach or do you like find, you know, oh, you find one you like, or you know, how do you respond to the diet de jure stuff? Yeah, I try to steer my clients the same way I steer myself in that any type of fad diet, it...

15:36
super effective like keto obviously it's very effective but check and see like is this gonna be sustainable to me for the rest of my life?

15:47
coffee for the rest of my life. Probably not. My arteries might hate me. Yeah, so I like to think like long-term, sustainable, freedom, let me stick to like science, which is proteins, fats, carbs. So, that's my thing.

16:10
Yeah, yeah, I don't know about the food pyramid. That is a little crazy. I do not eat as much grains as white grains as they tell me to. I think that was really messed up. But definitely like the macro space is what I always like to.

16:31
fitness in music and culture like all these worlds like collide and like to me you know when we're both new to core and you know.

16:43
That's what I love about core is I don't have to take my headphones. You know? I can listen to the trap music that's playing. I like to listen to rap or any type of like sometimes I'll get in a really girly mood.

16:59
motivating but sometimes I can get on a role working out and be listening to a podcast a lot of times my brain is like working business-wise whenever I'm working out

17:16
there.

17:20
Yeah, it's like you're in that.

17:24
I trained for a marathon last year. I ran a marathon last year. And so I run with my sister. Yep, full marathon. So I have to run side of guide when I run in races because there's just so many people. I can't navigate everyone.

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with my vision safely. So my sister runs as my side of guide and she'll either run like one step ahead of me or will run holding a tether so like any type of thing that's just keeping us kind of together and she'll give me cues verbally but we were training for our marathon we would burn through podcasts because I mean you're out running for like four hours.

18:04
So we will see you guys later.

18:10
sprints but like

18:16
Yeah, so

18:19
few races leading up to that because I thought like, oh, distance running might be my thing. I've been wanting to have some type of competitive outlet as an adult. So after we ran that full marathon, I had someone contact me from the U.S. Paralympic Committee and they're like, hey, we see that you're a blind runner. We need more blind runners on our marathon Team USA. Do you want to train and start entering some races and maybe qualify? And I was like, well, this is awesome. I mean, what an awesome...

18:48
love to compete in the Olympics for Team USA but I hate marathon running so I can't do that so now I'm actually training to do some track and field events for Team USA. That's awesome. Yeah. Well this has been really great.

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It is like this, you know.

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Someone has a disability that people don't, even myself, you know.

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I don't know.

19:43
less someone like yourself that's like pushed through all of it and pushing hash boundaries that even people without disabilities are doing. Yeah.

20:02
you know that's my main mission is to break down that stigma that can come with being a person with a disability I mean it's like being part of any other minority group there's a lot of stigma that comes with it there's a lot of stereotypes that come with it and it's kind of

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you just if you haven't been exposed to it a lot you don't feel comfortable talking about it or approaching it because you don't want to say anything wrong and you don't want to hurt someone. So I love to just kind of make that seem more normal, break down those stereotypes and show people that there are people out there with disabilities that do everything anyone else does.

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and where they can...

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follow what you're doing, get some work going, get some fitness training, any of that stuff. Yeah. Where can everybody find you? For sure. I'm at BlindFitGirl on all social media platforms. I mainly hang out on Instagram and YouTube. My website is blindfitgirl.com and I'm starting a new five-week challenge for women. It's fitness plans, meal plans, and empowerment coaching. For five weeks we get started on Monday.

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actually. So there's still time to sign up if anyone's interested.

21:24
DM over what happens with Game of Thrones here soon. I know, yeah, excited to hear. Cool. Thank you. Well, we really appreciate Erica coming on today.

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Follow us anytime at radical underscore results on Instagram or on the website radical.com. Anytime. Thanks so much. And we're out.