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The One Strong Mother Podcast
Pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or reheat it for the third time—we get it), and join me for candid conversations about the messy, meaningful intersection of motherhood and personal growth.
This isn’t just a podcast about planners and productivity—though we love a good system around here. It’s about what it really looks like to pursue your goals while raising a family, managing chaos, and trying to stay grounded in the process.
Each week, I’ll share stories from my own life, behind-the-scenes lessons from building the One Strong Mother brand, and practical tools to help you stay organized, get intentional, and move forward—even when it feels like you're doing it all with a baby on your hip and laundry on the couch.
Whether you're in the thick of diapers or driving teens to practice, there's space for you here. Let’s figure it out together, one strong mother at a time.
The One Strong Mother Podcast
You don’t need to ditch PAM to get healthier—master the basics first and let the small stuff go
Ever feel a wave of guilt over a tiny food choice—like spraying a pan before you cook dinner—and wonder why it holds so much power? We unpack a real coaching moment that started with “Is PAM bad?” and opened into a bigger, liberating truth: your results don’t hinge on a single ingredient. They come from foundations you can repeat on the busiest days—steady calories, enough protein, useful carbs, supportive fats, and fiber that keeps everything moving.
I walk through a simple plate reframe that turns shame into clarity. Instead of fixating on what to cut, we ask what each part of your meal is doing for you: protein repairs, carbs fuel, fats satisfy, fiber stabilizes. If you’re navigating GLP-1s like tirzepatide, we talk about why energy-supporting carbs and high fiber become essential, and why cooked veggies might beat raw if digestion is sensitive. Tools that make consistency easier—yes, including low-calorie sprays—deserve a place when they help you keep promises to yourself.
This is permission to prioritize the big levers and celebrate the wins that actually matter: cooking at home, hitting protein, getting fiber, and fueling your life. Once those habits feel automatic, upgrades are easy—swapping oils, choosing more whole foods, and dialing in quality without stress. Shame isn’t a strategy; consistency is. If you’re ready to trade perfection for progress, tune in, take the plate exercise for a spin, and start stacking small wins tonight.
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Hey there. Welcome to the One Strong Mother podcast, the space where empowering and inspiring moms unite to embrace strength, balance, and well-being amidst the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host, Ashley, a military spouse and Mama Five, blocking this incredible path beside you. In each episode, I'll bring you candid conversations, expert insights, and heartfelt stories that touch on every facet of modern motherhood. Whether you're sneaking in a listen during a quick coffee break or savoring those rare moments of quiet, together we'll tackle the hurdles, boost each other up, and cement our place as the strong, resilient women we are designed to be. Thanks for tuning in, and let's dive into today's episode, shall we? Hello, and welcome to another episode of the One Strong Mother Podcast. This podcast episode is gonna be super interesting. It's a conversation that I found myself having with a client the other day, and I most certainly thought it was worth sharing because I know it's it's actually a conversation I've had many, many of times with past clients and just people in general when it comes to health. So, anyways, I thought it'd be really fun to talk about how to not overcomplicate health and seeing results. Uh I this particular conversation was based around my client felt shamed and guilty, and she was shaming herself. This isn't shame coming from an outside source. This is that classic mom guilt that we all feel whenever we know we are using ingredients that somebody, whether that is somebody on social media, an influencer, somebody on the news, an article that we read, a blog post that we read, you name it, it's out there that has deemed it's an ingredient that has been deemed off limits. I'm a huge advocate of not deeming anything off limits. And if you have my nutrition guide, then you've seen my visual guide of the eat more of, eat less of, eat some of. Or eat eat more of, eat some, I don't know. You get the point. There's three categories, and so it really changes the vocabulary of don't ever eat this again. Like, come on, we all know that Oreos are probably not the best choice for us, and we should probably eat less of, but to tell ourselves that it's it I'm never gonna eat Oreos again, you're really truly just setting yourself up for failure. So let's go back to this client who was feeling bad. She, it's crazy what she felt bad about was using spray pam. And and she felt bad because she knows, like, we've all read like seed oils and blah blah blah blah blah, this kind of oil, that kind of oil. It's not avocado oil. And while granted, I do use avocado oil in my house. I would be lying if I said there's not also a can of Pam in my pantry for quick and an easy use application for a one-time thing, like aka when I'm making eggs and I want to control the amount of oil in my pan versus dropping too much avocado oil in my pan. You get where I'm going with this. And the first thing that came to mind was one, it made me very sad that she was feeling shame for using said ingredient. You should not feel shame. Like there's some deeper layers that we need to pull back on, but something that made her feel bad or feel better, feel bad, feel better and and almost gave her permission to think differently about it, is if you are someone who is on your health journey just barely understanding the foundations of health and understanding the foundations of what your body actually needs to function and feel better, the last thing that you should be worried about in that particular moment is using Pam. And this goes for other deemed no-no food item lists. Like it's not just Pam. I'm not picking on Pam. In fact, I'm advocating like, my God, if it makes your night easier and it means that you are controlling your caloric intake from what is usually overlooked as a fat source, you should be very, very, very proud of yourself. That is nothing to feel shame about. If you are just now understanding the foundations of how many calories your body needs in order to achieve whatever goal it is that you're after, Pam is the least of your worries. If you are not hitting your protein goals on a daily basis, Pam is the least of your worries. If you are not getting enough fiber on a daily basis, Pam and other set ingredients that are deemed irresponsible and the reason your hormones are off is the least of your worries. I say this with sarcasm, but I really do mean that from the bottom of my heart. You should not be stressing and especially shaming yourself if you can barely achieve the foundations. And I say barely as not to shame you, but but being a mom, being a woman, being a female in this world is already hard enough. You do not. I am giving you permission, you do not have to stress over such minute things right now. It is not worth it. It is not worth the stress levels of feeling bad over spraying Pam in your pan. Okay, you should be very proud of yourself that you controlled your fat intake by spraying Pam in your pan. You did not over-consume, you did not over-indulge. There's so many more things to reframe that moment to than feeling shame over an ingredient. Sure, if you're going through a can of Pam in one day every day, maybe we need to talk about some different foundational work. But I can I can tell you that I've never coached a client that goes through that much Pam in a day. But what I what I can tell you is that there are so many other things in that moment to be proud of, to just completely reframe the scenario, the feeling of the situation to being positive. Again, let's go back to how about we we praise yourself for controlling your caloric intake. How about we praise the fact that you're cooking a home cooked meal that requires you to spray something? You could have gone out to grab a bite to eat because let's face it, it's a hell of a lot easier than cooking a home-cooked meal. But the fact is, you got food out of your fridge that requires heat on your stove, a pan, and the need for Pam to be in your pan. I did not plan for all of the rhyming words class, but here we are. I want you to be proud of yourself. You are cooking, you're cooking real ingredients. I don't know what you made. I know what she made the other day, and it was some chicken in her pan. Let like that's that's a lot to be proud of. In today's time, she has multiple kids. She works and she got she came home from work tired, exhausted, her kids needed to eat. She could have gone to go get fast food that had a heck of a lot more fat in it than the the little amount of ham that she sprayed in her pan. But the fact is, she chose to make a home-cooked meal for her family. That should be rewarded. That should be prideful. You should sit with that and be really freaking proud of yourself, not shame and experiencing guilt over one ingredient that may not affect your body at all. I'm not saying it's the best thing for you, but my god, it's so, so minute compared to all the other victories that you should be celebrating in the fact that you are cooking a home cooked meals. Ladies, we are way too busy. There's way too much riding on our shoulders. And if you are married, I promise you, unless you're married to some like crazy holistic MD that understands the chemistry of every ingredient, and no shame to those people. I'm just saying most of us are not married to that man, right? If you are married and you have a spouse that has also been working, guess what? Guess what? They're gonna look at you with love in their heart and and maybe potentially tears in their eyes. I don't know. That's kind of dramatic, but you get what I'm saying. They're gonna be appreciative. They're not sitting there shaming in their head, like, God, I wish my wife wouldn't have been poisoning us with this stupid pam. Heck no. I can tell you first hand, I don't know that my husband genuinely cares what I put on the table. It's the fact that he gets to come home from a long, very long, hard day at work to a home-cooked meal. He didn't have to ask questions, he didn't have to stress, he didn't have to do anything other than just come home and celebrate the fact that he's home and he is being nourished in his body by more than one ways. Let me tell you, the love that goes into that food goes way further than some crappy ingredient that someone claimed was gonna disrupt your endocrine system. Okay? Again, if you're consuming an entire can of it straight down the shooter, maybe, maybe, I don't know. I don't know what it's gonna do to you. I've never gone down that rabbit hole, so who am I to say? But odds are I don't know anyone that's ever consumed an entire can of Pam every day for an extended period of time. And neither have you. So no matter what that ingredient is, stop feeling guilty about it. Stop shaming yourself and ask yourself, what can I actually be proud of in this moment? Okay, so let's let's add actually another layer to this. If I if if I was continuing this conversation with this said client, we're gonna do an exercise. And if there's an ingredient that you're just beating yourself up over, maybe for some women it's carbs, right? Like we you guys have been so conditioned to be so afraid of carbs. So I think this is a great example. Let's do it. This is an exercise. Um, instead of experiencing and and leaning into all of the shame that is based around the carbs, I want you the next time you have carbs and you find yourself feeling this guilt, it could be anything, it doesn't have to be carbs, but you like you get for the for the sake of this exercise, you get where I'm going. Um, I want you to look at at what else is on your plate. And instead of looking at the carbs with disgust and shame and and fear, I want you to look at everything else and ask yourself, how is this nourishing my body? Um, you're probably gonna have a protein source on there. Usually it's chicken for us um or beef. We eat a lot of beef around here. Cool, that protein, guess what? It's rebuilding my body for a lot from a long day. I am helping put my body back together. I'm not gonna focus on am I eating enough protein? Is it the right protein? Should I be eating white meat? Should I be eating red meat? I don't know, I don't know, no, it's protein. Guess what? Your body, if you don't have an intolerance to any said protein source, it doesn't care. It doesn't care what kind of protein it is, okay? There's different uh vitamins and minerals and all the things in other protein sources, like they all offer you nourishment in some way, shape, or form. Okay, so that's on your plate. Um, the carbs. Okay, instead of like, oh my god, I shouldn't eat this, even if it's freaking bread. What is it doing for you? Guess what? It's giving me energy. Um, I'm on, I'm currently on terzepatite, and so I'm not eating nearly as much. So there it has been a blessing to be able to look at carbs and say, like, awesome, this is going to fuel that workout that I might feel a little bit fatigued for. Let me get plenty of carb sources. And so it's definitely reframed that what is it doing for me? And being very, very adamant about making sure that I am fueling because guess what? GLP1s slow your body down and you feel a little bit sluggish. So anything that we can do to add a fuel source is a huge victory. So, so that's the carbs, and then fats usually come very organically with your food, your protein, and your carbs. So, again, fats and carbs are both fuel sources for your body. So you really are like you're you're fueling and you're repairing. Why is there so much guilt? Why why have we let other people dictate how we shame ourselves? Why do we shame ourselves? It's crazy. It's crazy when you look at it. It's crazy that to be a little bit more mindful of calorie intakes by using Pam. Do you know how many um fat loss phases I've gone through and relied on low calorie sprays in my pan? A lot. And guess what? I never fell apart. I never I never crashed and burned because of the freaking oil that I sprayed in my damn pan. So stop shaming yourself. Stop it. Be kind to your body, be kind to your heart, be kind to your soul. Hug your body and tell yourself how proud you are of making a home cooked meal and putting love into it. You're tired and you're worn out. So stop making yourself more miserable than what what the world tells us to be. Okay? You don't have to feel bad for using Pam. This is your permission slip to say, you know what, if this if this fits right now in my day, then so be it. I'm gonna use it. And if you are not, I'm gonna go back to my first statement. If you are not able to meet the very minimum of the foundations of nutrition, then you have no place to be stressing about what oil you are using in your pan and what it's doing to your body. Let's focus on what we can add to your day, not eliminate. When you have that down to a T, then I give you all the permission in the world to then focus on quality of ingredients. But if we do not have the foundations of protein, fats, and carbs and regularly getting that and fiber, I'm gonna throw fiber in there too. If there's anything you should focus on next, it should be fiber. Fiber is everything. And when you're on GLP1, let me tell you, it's everything times 10. Um, you are going to be screwed if you don't consume enough fiber. So stop, stop, stop. If you were here in person, I would give you a little boop on the head probably and say, stop it, stop that right now. I'm feeling a little feisty. I have my coffee in my hand. Oh my god, I'm drinking caffeine, and I am yelling at you to stop and be kind to yourself because you do not have to feel shame and guilt and and all the other negative feelings that come along with using an ingredient that you heard someone say disrupts the endocrine system. Well, let me tell you something. Your metabolism and your uh your your GI system don't operate function oh my god, I can't talk. They don't operate properly if you cannot meet the basic foundations of nutrition. So don't overcomplicate it. Eat a little bit more veggies, spray the Pam in the pan and saute them veggies because I'm not eating them raw because they hurt my stomach. So I will continue to use my Pam while I'm in a fat loss phase, and I prefer to eat more carbs than I do fat. So I'm gonna continue to count my calories and and and go poison my body. Not really, I'm just kidding, but you get what I'm saying. Be be kind, love yourself. I'm gonna keep it really short. That's like that's really like if you want more of these kind of this is more of like a coaching call than it was a podcast episode, but I love doing, I love talking about stuff like this. If you want more of this, I am gonna put a link in the show notes for you. I have a free private community called the Recharge Room, where you actually get access to a mini course inside of there, and it has my signature nutrition lesson pulled straight from my bigger nutrition or lifestyle course that we run in the Design to Last private community. So it's a different community, but you will get a lesson straight out of there, and then you there's other tools in there. There's a GLP1 toolkit. If you are GLP1 curious, it breaks down what it's like in your first 30 days. Um, I there's a training guide, so a fitness training program in there that comes with it, and then the nutrition PDF guide that goes along with the video. I walk you through each page inside that video and I break it down for you. It is a really, really in-depth but uh lesson, but it keeps it very basic so you don't focus on the wrong things. So if you want access to all of that, please, please come join us. And oh, and we do a we a monthly um live group coaching call. So you get more information like this. So come hang out with me in the recharge room. I would love to have you. It's completely free. It's a private community, it's a safe space to ask all the questions that you could ever have about health, wellness, life, motherhood, wins, losses, all the things. Come join us. Until next time, don't forget to be One Strong Mother.