The Tea with Tina
The Tea with Tina is going to be your new favorite weekly chit-chat that will feel like a good, juicy sit-down with your BFF. This podcast isn't your average (and boring) radio talk show-styled podcast. We dig deep, get personal, and have lots of fun along the way. Hear some relatable stories and a different perspective on various topics from health and fitness to pop culture. I am Tina Wieland, a certified fitness trainer and nutrition coach. Grab your caffeinated drink of choice, get comfortable, and be ready to hear the TEA.
The Tea with Tina
246 | Finding Joy Beyond Comfort Zones: Social Adventures, Holiday Cheer, and Life Hacks
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Stepping out of our comfort zones can be daunting, but what unexpected joys might await us on the other side? Join me as I recount my journey as an introvert navigating the realms of socializing and connection in a post-COVID world, accompanied by my charming kitten, Jinx. From attending a casual wine and yoga gathering to exploring new hobbies, I share candid reflections on the art of mingling and forming meaningful relationships. If you’ve ever felt the tug to break free of your cozy cocoon, my stories and tips might just inspire your next social adventure.
Beyond the social scene, I invite you into my world of holiday cheer, fitness, and culinary delights. Discover the magic of my potted trees and enjoy a virtual visit to the quirky "Do Good Dog" restaurant, with its delightful offerings like mahi-mahi and pumpkin cheesecake. I also open up about my Sunday reset routine, complete with cleaning hacks and meal prep insights, thanks to the macro-friendly recipes from "Lauren Fit Foodie." As a proud Pittsburgher, I can’t help but cheer for the Steelers and share my thoughts on their latest game. Tune in for a dose of inspiration and gratitude as I discuss tools that have streamlined my life and express appreciation for your continued engagement.
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Welcome to the Tea with Tina, your favorite podcast, where we talk all things health, fitness, lifestyle, and maybe a little bit of tea gets spilled. We chat all about this in a super casual environment. So grab your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and enjoy. Relax and enjoy. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the tea with tina podcast.
Speaker 1:I come to you with a kitten, my baby kitten jinx, uh, laying on my legs. Uh, because I'm in the office and he is still quarantined if you haven't kept up with that. And, uh, he is ready to fall asleep. I love how cats have different personalities. Oh, my goodness, he just rolled onto his back so he showed he's showing me his belly. Um, his quirk is like, if you rub his gums and I think it's because he's like getting new teeth, because apparently kittens eat their baby teeth very interesting. Um, he's getting his new teeth and, uh, so his gums are probably sore. So he'll rub his gums on everything and he makes this cute little like nasally purring noise and he keeps his mouth open and he just sounds like a goober and I love it. And sometimes, if I like rub his nose or his gums, like his upper kind of lips gum area, he'll make that noise. So I'm all about it, um, but anyways. So I am continuing on this train of kind of just chatting about what I want to chat about and what has been going on in my life, and this weekend I'm recording this on a Monday I think was a great testament of me kind of gaining momentum and stepping out of my shell.
Speaker 1:In regards to socializing, yeah, that may sound weird for some of you who are probably naturally extroverts and you hang out with people, but I will say, in this day and age, post-covid with the internet, I think more and more people are kind of hanging out at home and not going out as much. It's expensive, you know. You could have just gotten out of the routine. Everybody might be working or be busy and everybody would just rather kind of like hang out on their phone and not hang out. Now, this isn't, you know, a blanket statement. That's not the case everywhere, but I'm sure there's a trend of that happening, especially as you get older, when you're an adult and people start to have kids and they have their own lives. Your work schedules aren't going to match up.
Speaker 1:I will tell you, when I was younger and I had friends, it was just wonderful. Like my best friends, we all worked together and we saw each other every day. I mean, if you worked full time, you would see them close to 40 hours a week and we'd hang out together after work. In school you shared the same classes, the people who lived on the same street as me. We were all best friends. We would, you know, do our homework and then hang out together. We'd knock on each other's doors to walk down to the bus stop. So you know, depending on where you're at, if you have a hobby, school, work, whatever, you're going to probably become friends with people that you're around the most.
Speaker 1:It's the people that you know you have to kind of make that conscious effort to reach out Like I know my husband, him and his like military buddies, they try to meet up, you know, twice a year at least. They usually schedule something, they pre plan it because everybody's life is all over the place. But they usually meet up for, like, some sort of sports game, sports event, hang out, get some food, and you know they're guys, so it's way easier. There's like hey, what's up? I haven't seen you in five years, like. But but they make an effort and I think that's important and I've been trying to do that a little bit more. I always kind of set that goal once a month I want to do some sort of like formal outing with friends.
Speaker 1:Um, and this weekend was fun. You know, one girl hosted a little event it was like a wine and yoga event at her house. Everybody brought food and we were chatting. Um, it was just a really good time. It was super casual, you know, and that's exactly what I like. I don't like when it's like has to be crazy planned out or you know, you're going to a bar and partying and drinking. That's never been me. I've always been like an old woman. With that Like, I think I left at like 10. I was like, oh man, this is. You know, this is getting to be past my bedtime now, because I'm like a grandma. But there was a couple other girls that left around that time too, so that made me a little bit happy. But yeah, I just kind of went out and socialized and that was fun.
Speaker 1:So for those of you who may be introverted, I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone. Do something that you would enjoy. Maybe try to join a hobby, and social media can be useful for this. Maybe look at local groups on facebook. Um, I know some people use meetup or, I think, bumble you can use for friends. Uh, but just try to get to know people somehow, even at gyms, you know. See if you can get in with a group class. Um, I love my group class. Uh, attendees like they're just amazing and such a great group. Um, I always have the best people in my group classes and the energy of when they mesh and chat and like the relationships are truly priceless. Um, and it's a fun environment. You know you're all burning calories together, you're all dying on the moves and it brings that sense of camaraderie, uh, and it's really nice.
Speaker 1:So, you know, explore, get out of your comfort zone. See what you can do, even with your friends, if maybe someone's far away. See if you can do like a group chat, like a video chat. That's always fun. You can kind of like watch shows together, just hang out. Maybe you like color and put some music on in the background and then you just kind of chat it up like. There's plenty of ways to do that and I think it's important to include that. I know I'm someone that I'm like no, I don't need it, I don't need it. I'm glad that I did that and so I feel like I kind of like got the ball rolling with that Recently. You know I kind of fall in and out with like hangouts, but I've been pretty decent, I'd say, with that. So there's that.
Speaker 1:Then on Saturday I went to the Renaissance Fair. This is as of December. They did a Yuletide, it's called so for a couple weekends in the winter they do almost like Krampus-style Ren Faire. Mostly the shops are open. They have a couple little activities. Krampus was taking photos, kind of like Santa Claus. He could sit on his lap and whatnot.
Speaker 1:Food again, shows, people, people dressed up. So it was nice. We kind of just walked around. I think we were there for like two hours. It was only open like 11 to 4 and you know we just browsed a lot of the shops. They had a lot of nice shops open. We got hot, hot apple cider. We saw a couple little shows in passing because they'll kind of just like pop up, um. But it was nice. It was nice to just get out, do something. It was relatively inexpensive too. The tickets aren't as expensive as like the regular renaissance fair, um, I think it was only like 20 bucks, so it was fun.
Speaker 1:Um, I think I looked at plants also that day, so that was fun as well. I always got to look at plants. We picked up like a very baby christmas tree. It was like I don't even know eight inches, like very tiny, but it was cute.
Speaker 1:You know, we just can't put up a Christmas tree with our cats. There's just no way. As soon as they see that tree, their eyes get so big and they get the Disney eyes and they just want to climb up in the tree and they knock stuff over. They get tangled in the lights. It's just crazy. Maybe when we have a house, but for right now we get the mini trees.
Speaker 1:I do have a slightly bigger tree. Uh, it still can fit on my tv stand. It's probably like two feet tall. Um, that I did decorate with bulbs and a little bow no lights, but it looks nice. And so now we have kind of like two little trees and I think we'll actually keep them till they grow and probably keep one out on the porch, uh, because they can obviously withstand the colder weather. So that'll be kind of neat to keep those, because it has its roots and everything, not like a traditional christmas tree where they kind of cut it and you just have to like water the base, so it's actually like a potted plant, um, and then we went out to eat at this really great place um, I could not tell you where it was.
Speaker 1:It was was like in some random Pennsylvania town you know how that goes. That was relatively close to a bigger town, but it was just a small town itself and it was called was it do good, do good dog or something like that and has a little dog with like a top hat or something. It was really cute because they they based it off of like ben franklin or something and how to do good things. It was decorated very nicely. It was my vibe. It was black and gold and kind of like maximalist, with wood accents. It was beautiful how they did it and the food was amazing. Like everything on the menu was fantastic. My husband always finds these places and these are the places I always encourage you, the listener, to go to if you're going out to eat and you want.
Speaker 1:You know there's options to eat unhealthy. You know if someone in your party wants to eat unhealthy, but there's also options to be healthy. Like me, I got salmon that was like in an orange glaze of something, and was it salmon? No, it was mahi. I was deciding between that and the salmon, but it was mahi, mahi and it had a cranberry chutney on it. And I got roasted brussel sprouts they were the best brussel sprouts I've ever had um, and then a side of mac and cheese. So I did end up, you know, splurging a little bit and we shared a pumpkin cheesecake and let me tell you, I didn't expect, I didn't have high hopes, like not that I I didn't think it was gonna be bad, but you know, I know what a cheesecake tastes like and I like cheesecake, but this one was great. The texture was different in a good way, and it was just so good, um, so it was a really great, really great place. There were so many things on the menu I wanted to try, um, so I had a really great time there.
Speaker 1:And then Sunday was pretty much a catch-up day. I really just kind of cleaned the house, which is something I've been working on. If you didn't listen to my last, I think it was my last podcast episode. I don't remember, maybe a couple ago, or I was talking about kind of like refining your systems and getting stuff done. You know, I was like, hey, you're gonna do the laundry, do dishes, clean this. We did go grocery shopping and I meal prepped some things even though it was late at night. It's gonna save me time throughout the week. So I set myself up really well this week.
Speaker 1:There's actually I'm gonna like name drop a girl that I love. If you look up drop a girl that I love. Um, if you look up Lauren Fit Foodie, okay, I love she has some fun macro friendly meals. Um, so if you are somebody who tracks calories and macros, she lists them for everything. She even has, like my fitness pal, logs for all of her meals and, um, I just love her food because it's like normal food. It it's what I align with. She makes normal food but puts a little healthy twist on it, makes it macro friendly, and I actually subscribed, which I'll probably keep it. I wanted to try one month just to see, but I subscribed to her monthly club where she drops exclusive, like member only, recipes. She does little meal plans and let me tell you that meal plan was life-saving for me this week because when I got it each week, um, she kind of lays out what you can eat, like she gives you a couple options for like breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks. It really helped me go.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm just gonna make this this week, like I did her um, blueberry sausage pancake bake and it was using Kodiak pancake mix. I made a couple little adjustments and it tastes fantastic. But just to add a little bit more nutrients, like I added egg whites into the pancake mix, because I normally do that anyway for some protein. Um, I made her little protein balls, which were delicious. Um, with mini m&ms. I had to use up some mini m&ms in my cabinet.
Speaker 1:Um, I just meal prepped her lunch bowl using quinoa, stepping out of my comfort zone with quinoa. Believe it or not, I really don't eat quinoa, but I was really happy with it and that was delicious. And I'm using her burger recipe for dinner tonight. So we're just like using all of her stuff, which is wonderful. It makes my life just so much easier. Um, so, again, it's only 10 bucks a month.
Speaker 1:This is not sponsored. This is just me like being like, wow, this is really useful, and like it's nice to see when, like something like that you can actually use um and it's beneficial. And her food tastes good, you know, like the peanut butter balls had a little bit of protein powder in them and I was a little nervous but they actually came out really good and my husband was like oh, those are actually pretty good, and I was like, ok, so, so that I was kind of leaning into yesterday. So literally just like Sunday reset, we did watch the Steelers game. I am a Steelers fan, I am from Pittsburgh. They're doing great this season. It was a really good game against the Browns. Um, they did great, some exciting moments. That was fun. And here we are. So that has all this been going on, but I just kind of wanted to uh share that update.
Speaker 1:The big thing was was I'm, you know, stepped out of my comfort zone, really just wanted to get out and socialize? It's funny because, as a trainer like I, I talk to people all day. Maybe that's why I don't want to get out and socialize. It's funny because, as a trainer like I, I talk to people all day. Maybe that's why I don't want to go out at the end of the night because, like I am, I do socialize all day. You know, I'm teaching classes, I'm doing one-on-ones, I'm just talking with people non-stop, um, but yeah, when it comes to my own friendships, it's just I have to go out and schedule it and do it.
Speaker 1:That's the big thing. But yeah, and streamline my system. That's been going well. I've been incorporating those new tools that I mentioned a couple podcast episodes as well, my planning tools. I've been getting more comfortable with those. It's been making my life easier. So, yeah, that's what I've been going, got going on. So I'm gonna close today's podcast episode out with that. Thank you for tuning in to my little life update and I'll chat.
