How to Stop Copying Someone Else's Health & Find What's Right For You

In this episode of Hell Yes Habits, Elyse Bushard discusses the importance of personalizing health journeys and the dangers of comparison. She emphasizes that health strategies that work for others may not be suitable for everyone, and encourages listeners to trust their own bodies and experiences. The conversation also covers the role of supplements, highlighting that they should support healthy habits rather than replace them. Elyse advocates for self-awareness and empowerment in making health choices, urging listeners to discern their motivations and build self-trust through personal reflection.

 Episode Takeaways

• We often abandon our own health routines due to comparison
• Health strategies are personal and vary from person to person
• Supplements should support, not replace, healthy habits
• A solid foundation of health includes sleep, nutrition, and stress management
• Empowerment in health choices leads to better outcomes than insecurity
• Self-trust is built by listening to your own body and experiences
• It's important to discern whether health choices come from empowerment or insecurity
• Consistency and tracking how you feel are key to understanding what works for you
• Your body is not broken; it needs attention and care
• Building a relationship with your body is essential for long-term health

Transcript

Elyse Bushard (00:01.058)
Hello, hello everyone. Welcome back to Hell Yes Habits. Like I said, I'm doing my best over here, but I did not get you two episodes like I planned in a week. So we're playing about year, but at least one a week is what we're going for.

And I have done that now solidly two weeks in a row. So we're making progress and that's what it's all about. But if you're new here and this is your first episode, my name is Elise. Follow me on Instagram if you're not, we can connect there and talk all about my crazy episodes. But today I want to talk about

more lean into not just mindset and things like that, but more about health. And before you turn this episode off,

I wanna preface this that like, this, we're thrown like a trillion and one ways that people are telling us to focus on our health. And this episode is going to just hopefully help you ask questions that are personal to you that you can answer.

to see if something is or is not for you, if that makes sense. Because like I said, we're thrown like a trillion and one different things. I guess I wanna start out is like, have you ever been feeling pretty good? Like your routine is solid, your energy is decent, you're consistent. And then someone says, either on social media,

Elyse Bushard (02:07.369)
or something, this has changed my life, you have to try it. And suddenly you're questioning everything. You're questioning if you have the right morning routine, you're drinking the right tea, all the things. And suddenly, you just, you question everything, you say maybe I should stop what I'm doing, maybe this is the missing piece.

Maybe this is why I'm not exactly where I want to be at whatever age you are, fill in the blank. And just like that, you would abandon yourself. And let's, let's preface like we were feeling good, right? And then we were like, and that comes with comparison. Like you see someone else and something else is working for them and, they like, and you just abandon yourself and just like that.

You abandon yourself. So today I just wanna talk about why we do that, first of all. Why copying, or copying, copying, copying someone else's health journey disconnects you from your body, and why supplements are meant to support your health, not replace your health. And we're going to do it in a grounded way.

not a shamy like you're doing everything wrong and this isn't going to be also like an extreme all or nothing type thing. I just want to have an honest conversation with all of you. And the first thing I want to point out is just because it worked for him or her, whoever you saw doing the thing, whether it was cold plunging or red light therapy,

or all these biohacking things or supplements. There's like a trillion and one supplements you could be taking with different brands and different things that promise different things. But just because it worked for him or her doesn't mean it's right for you. And here's something I've learned in my late 30s. Two women or men can do the exact same protocol and have completely different outcomes.

Elyse Bushard (04:29.299)
Like they notice completely different things in their body because our hormones are different, our stress levels are different, our sleep is different, our trauma and history and biology is different. Your workload is different than my workload. Your season of life is different. Some of your parents that are listening, that's a completely different season of life than I'm in, a single woman.

38, like everything plays into a factor year. And yet we hear someone's success story and we immediately think, maybe I should do that. And we abandon like everything else that might be working for us. We stop paying attention. I've done this multiple times. I've done this. I've abandoned routines that worked because someone else's results made me question myself.

Not because my body told me to change, but because comparison did. And that's just a subtle trap that we all fall victim to. And I'm not calling anyone out. I'm calling myself out as well. Because when you override your own signals because someone else got results, you slowly train yourself not to trust your body, your mind, your emotions.

your biofeedback. And at 38, I refuse to live disconnected from my body. Because frankly, you're listening to this podcast and that's not a hell yes habit to not listen to our own bodies. Yes, I encourage everyone to try something new. If you're curious about something and you heard it from someone else,

and you're curious if it'll work for your body, try it. Like, if it keeps coming up and you're like, because you're not gonna know unless you try it. So I'm not saying don't try new things. Like, don't go to that extreme either. But I refuse to live disconnected from my body because it's not a helly-ass habit. A helly-ass habit says I pay attention, I adjust when needed, but I don't panic.

Elyse Bushard (06:54.953)
like and go from one thing to another because guess what you're doing when you do that to your body? You're literally making your body panic and your body wants you to survive so it will adjust and freak out and then you'll have to get used to something new so like every time you feel you make decisions and you're disconnected from your own body and your own biofeedback

and you stop doing things that might been working for you because you hear someone else got results doing something else, like just listen to your body. And it's hard, it's hard. I'm not discounting that this isn't hard. Like it's very hard, especially when we're thrown marketing messages left and right. Heck, I sell supplements like that I use. And so, but.

I do preface when I have conversations with everyone that if they're curious about it, they should try it. I'm not gonna guarantee them results. A bunch of different people are getting results. I feel great on them. But like, you won't know unless you try, but only you can tell if they're working for you. And that brings me into perfectly,

How supplements, like let's talk about supplements for a minute. Somewhere along the way, we started treating supplements like they were magic solutions. We live in this like instant gratification, with AI, with everything right now that is being thrown at us, we're getting it quicker. We get everything quicker. Amazon Prime culture like,

can order my groceries the day of and have them delivered. I can order some pills from Target and then be at my door. AI can literally regenerate an entire itinerary for a international travel plan in seconds. And somewhere along the way, we started treating supplements this way.

Elyse Bushard (09:12.457)
We started treating them like magic solutions. Like we skip over, am I sleeping enough? Am I eating enough protein? Am I managing my stress? Am I strength training? Am I drinking water? All those things are still important whether or not you force feed yourself supplements or not. Because actually, the supplements won't work. Or they won't work as well if you're not fueling your body and getting enough sleep and doing things.

And so we jump straight to what can I take to fix this? It's magic, like fix it. And supplements are meant to support your health. They're meant to support healthy habits and not replace it. They are the reinforcement. They're not the foundation. What the foundation is, is the sleep, the fueling your body properly with nutrition, managing your stress.

strength training, drinking water, those are the foundation. So if your foundation is cracked, adding more support beams doesn't fix the base. Like it doesn't fix what's going on below the surface. For example, I take peptides, I hinted on this a little bit in past episodes, but I take bioactive,

They're not synthetic peptides, they're not injectables. I will not be injecting myself with anything. But I take peptides from make, not like, I mean they do work for other people, I just don't, I can't imagine ever injecting myself with needles. Unless it was a life or death situation. But I take all natural peptides. They're powders and pills from a company called Makewellist. They're not synthetic.

they're naturally occurring sequences that support your body and they support your body on a cellular level. they're natural peptides that your body recognizes. But here's the important part. I didn't start them because someone else said this fixed me. I was very skeptical, but I started them because I paid attention

Elyse Bushard (11:33.554)
to the problems that it would solve and I knew the problems that I was facing that I wanted more help with. So I paid attention to my energy, my recovery, my focus during work and I decided they could support what I already was trying to build in my body. They are supporting my habits. They don't replace them. So if I'm sleeping five hours a night,

No peptide overrides that long term. It does help me, they do have a sleep peptide that helps you get more quality sleep so you're not as groggy, but I am my best when I'm getting seven to eight hours of sleep, the majority of that being restorative sleep. If I'm chronically stressed though, like something is happening at work or in my personal life, nothing replaces a walk outside.

for me or a workout, like a good hard workout and breathing or pausing and stretching like in a good nighttime routine, like nothing, those peptides are great but they will not replace that for me. And if I'm not moving my body, hence that goes to the walks, the workouts, my fly dance fitness class, which I absolutely love.

If I'm not moving my body, no supplement carries that load for me. So the support that supplements help with is powerful, but it's not a substitute for self responsibility. And that's empowering to me. Now that I know that, it's not restrictive. And so let me repeat that one more time. Support is powerful, but

And supplements are powerful and they can be powerful, but it's not a substitute for self responsibility. And that's empowering and not restrictive. But let me get into the deeper conversation here because it isn't actually about supplements. I just think it ties into this and the deeper conversation is about discernment. And what I mean by that is

Elyse Bushard (14:00.642)
asking yourself questions and becoming curious about your own body. So before you try something new, ask yourself three things. What problem am I actually trying to solve? Is my foundation solid? Or am I adding this from empowerment or insecurity? And that third one will probably help you decide if it's worth trying or not.

Am I adding this from empowerment or insecurity? Like, if I am for... If I'm watching someone on social media and they are saying, this helped me lose 25 pounds. If that's the reason why I am drawn to it, like, yes, I wanna lose weight.

But that is more an insecurity of mine, tapping into that, than empowering. Whereas if someone says, is helping me give more energy to the things that matter in my life, wow, like, that's empowering, right? Instead of just comparing my weight to another person's weight as an insecurity of mine.

Am I adding this from empowerment or insecurity? Like that third one is a game changer because when we add things from insecurity, we're chasing something. And when we add from empowerment, we're enhancing something already in our life that we value or we want. And so confidence in your health doesn't come from constantly switching strategies.

It comes from reps, from tracking how you feel, from adjusting slowly instead of overhauling your life weekly, and from staying consistent long enough to actually know what's working in your body. So it comes from reps by doing the thing over and over again.

Elyse Bushard (16:18.937)
from tracking how you feel, like legitimately pausing and asking, is this working for you? Is it fit? And sometimes, like when I started taking these natural peptides, I actually stopped taking them for like a week because I wanted to see like if I noticed a difference and I instantly did. Like.

I was like, I'm sore after my workout. Like this fit peptide is helping me with that. like my muscle definition is actually going down or my hunger cues are back. and I'm more obsessive about food at social events. like, so like it helps with little things. so that's one of the ways that you can do that. Like try something new.

and then stop taking it and notice in your body what is happening. And...

The main thing I want to hone in on is you don't build self-trust by copying what someone else is doing. You build it by listening to you and your body and your mind and your emotions and your body cues, your biofeedback, because that's different than anyone else's biofeedback, taking the same things.

because we're all unique. And so you don't build that self-trust by copying someone else. You build it by listening to yourself.

Elyse Bushard (18:03.414)
And to wrap up, I want you to hear this clearly because I know this was a different episode, but I kind of really enjoyed it. You could probably tell I was really fired up about this one. But I want you to hear this clearly is that you're not behind. Your body's not broken and you're not missing some secret thing.

everyone else has already figured out. Your body is asking for attention, not abandonment. And if you choose to add support, like therapy, coaching, peptides, supplements, whatever, let it be because it aligns with you and your values and your health goals, not because someone else's results made you doubt.

your own result, yourself, and made you doubt your own results.

Because in this community, in this world, I want Helly Ass Habits not to be about chasing every new fix, every quick fix. They're about building a relationship with your body that feels grounded and intentional and empowered. And at 38 years old right now, I don't chase anymore. Or at least I catch myself

before I do that. I question whether a situation, a supplement, any decision is for me. So I discern, I ask questions. And honestly, that has changed everything, that shift. And so I wanted to share it with you guys because I feel like it's so important for us to realize

Elyse Bushard (20:07.702)
that we know when something, we know when it's time to try something new or when something's not working and what we need to shift. We know all the things. You just have to pause and listen. I love you guys. Since I don't really have a closing anymore, I wanna say that thank you.

for listening as well as I have like new countries listening so welcome. Welcome all the new countries, all the peeps. I surpassed 500 downloads so I can't even like, that's amazing to me. But also follow me on Instagram, connect with me there, Elyse, E-L-Y-S-E B-U-S-H-A-R-D. It's in the show notes. Also that's where I talk about everything peptides so.

The peptides that I take, the powders, the supplements, if you're not into injectables, like GLP-1s, there's one that mimics a GLP-1. Also, if you are on a GLP-1, they are doing amazing things and helping people maintain muscle, because you lose that when you inject GLP-1s. Anyways, all the things. Follow me on Instagram. If you have any questions, DM me.

I'm always here, there's also a text number on here that I check. So if you wanna text me after you listen to this, I would love that. And thank you. Thank you for listening and we'll talk soon.