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Tired But Toned
Tired But Toned is the podcast for busy women doing their best on low battery.
Hosted by fitness and nutrition coach Tina Wieland, this show is all about building real strength, managing stress, and creating habits that actually work in your real life — whether you're running on caffeine, chaos, or a solid eight hours (rare, but we dream).
Expect a mix of bite-sized tips and deeper dives into movement, mindset, hormones, recovery, and how to feel good in your body without burning out trying to “fix” it.
Whether you’re navigating autoimmune challenges, the weight of modern life, or just tired of the all-or-nothing fitness game — this podcast gets it. And more importantly, gets you moving in a way that lasts.
Because you don’t need more motivation.
You need a smarter strategy — even on your tired days.
Tired But Toned
259 | Tired of Being Tired? It Might Be Your Boundaries
Send me a text about the episode!
Do you find yourself exhausted, stressed, and struggling with your health despite your best fitness efforts? The missing piece might not be another workout or diet plan—it could be your boundaries.
In this deeply personal episode, I open up about my lifelong struggle as a people-pleaser and how it impacted everything from my autoimmune disorder to my decision to become an entrepreneur. Growing up watching my mother constantly put others first, I absorbed the message that my needs should come last. This pattern follows many of us, especially women, into adulthood where we continue pouring from empty cups.
The health consequences can be severe. When boundaries are poor, stress hormones surge, sleep suffers, nutrition becomes haphazard, and even serious conditions like autoimmune disorders can develop or worsen. I share my own experiences with these challenges and the difficult but necessary journey of learning to say "no" without guilt.
What makes boundary-setting particularly challenging is that people accustomed to your constant "yes" will inevitably react when you begin to decline requests. This adjustment period can be uncomfortable but necessary. Whether it's managing your work schedule, deciding which clients deserve your energy, or determining how to balance family obligations with personal needs, boundaries create the foundation for sustainable health.
Ready to protect your peace and prioritize your wellbeing? Listen now to discover practical strategies for setting boundaries that honor both your needs and your relationships. Your health—and happiness—depend on it.
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Hey friends, if you hear some chirping in the background, that is my kitten Jinx. He's really actually not a kitten at this point, I think he was just kind of the runt and he's like part Bombay. So he's like a tiny little man with the cutest high-pitched voice and I absolutely love him. But he was just following me around. Now he's like rubbing my hand. He loves to rub his gums off of things. Okay, now that we have that sensory intro, that very descriptive intro, I wanted to welcome you to the Toned but Tired podcast, and today I wanted to chat about something that is very important to me and, I think, one of those things in your health and fitness journey that just gets really overlooked and can be challenging to really do, and that is setting boundaries, boundary setting. This is hard, especially for females, and let me tell you the way I grew up, just from observing my mom, and nothing wrong with her, bless her heart, she's the sweetest woman ever, but she is such a people pleaser. So am I. My sister, in a way, is kind of too. I think we could all kind of relate to that. Um, I just grew up as a major people pleaser. Um, for one reason or another, you know, I just learned that, hey, you know your needs come last. Put everybody else's needs first and they'll be happy. And if you keep people happy, you know life is good. And again, I think probably many of you can relate to that, especially if you're a mom right now, or even just maybe a caregiver to a family member or a loved one. I see this a lot. It's like you come last. You feel like if you relax or take time for yourself, stuff is going to crumble. But this is where it starts to affect our health and fitness. You know our energy depletes. We're pouring from an empty cup. We become aggravated. Maybe we gain a couple pounds because we've been so stressed out and like everything kind of snowballs, because we haven't been getting enough sleep. Our stress is high. We're eating really quick foods, maybe at the drive-thru. Maybe we're experiencing some cravings. Maybe we're just not eating right. You're not eating throughout the day and then you end up like super hungry and then you kind of binge on stuff you don't want to. Maybe our health goes down the drain. Maybe you get an autoimmune disorder. Maybe blood pressure creeps up, cholesterol there's so many things that can happen as a result of basically neglecting care for ourselves.
Speaker 1:And even though initially, if you are someone who's a people pleaser, it can kind of sound like, you know, putting yourself first is a bad thing. You know it sounds selfish, right? Like oh my gosh, putting myself first before my children, like what's wrong with you? And and no, that's not exactly what I mean. Um, I think it's the way we need to reframe it, of putting yourself first is actually caring, because when you put yourself first and you allow yourself to show up as your best self for those that you care about, that is just a win for everybody. And here's another hard truth about setting boundaries Sometimes, when you do set boundaries, you're going to disappoint people, especially if you're a people pleaser at first, because people are going to expect you.
Speaker 1:They know you as the people pleaser, they know you as the person that says yes to everything. So when you say no, it can kind of take them aback and they might get angry. But they're not angry at you necessarily. Um, I think they're just angry at the idea that they didn't get what they wanted. They knew that they could come to you. Yeah, jenny's always the girl that says yes, I know I can rely on her.
Speaker 1:That's similar to work as well, right goes into work. Why is the worker who always works super, super hard all the time, uh, the one that gets taken advantage of the most, right? Oh, my god, I always say yes to coming in when you want me to come in. On my off days, I'm always doing more, I'm always staying later and then, like the one time you don't, it's like this big deal. But then you have, like the coworker who half asses everything and like they just scoot under the radar and everybody's like, oh, that's just how they are, like it's fine, right, I have been there many, many times. That's actually one of the reasons that I went into working for myself A lot of, like mini story time here, a lot of the jobs that I've worked for.
Speaker 1:It's just in my nature to kind of go above and beyond, like you know, most jobs. If you're working, like you know, at a box gym I worked at a car wash, like even just at a grocery store, right, like you know, you come in, you do your job, you leave, you make an X amount of dollars. If you work harder, that's not necessarily going to guarantee that you get more pay. Maybe at the end of the year you might get a raise. Who knows the way today's work environment is. That's usually not the case. Working harder doesn't necessarily mean anything, but I would Like.
Speaker 1:I would just be like, oh, this is really dirty and this is bothering me, like I want to clean it because I have some extra time and it makes me feel better. It wasn't't, you know, out of like, oh, my god, I need to do all this extra, uh, work, you know, to look good. It was just kind of like my standards of what I wanted and you know, I just I got taken advantage of. It'd be like, oh, tina, do this, do this, do this, and like anytime, I went back to like the bare minimum, like less than above beyond. It was like viewed as a negative. I would like work my butt off and I would not get raises. It was terrible. So that's actually one of the reasons I went into business for myself, because I was like, well, at least if I go above and beyond, I know that it's going towards my work, my business, I'm growing something, so it's not, you know, going to some corporation who's just using me for the money kind of deal. Right, so that that was a plus, but yes, so this is a reminder, and maybe you haven't even been told this or maybe you heard this. You're like, yeah, that's not me, because I can tell you that this is a continuing practice, like setting boundaries is so important.
Speaker 1:As somebody who has an autoimmune disorder and I do believe, like I used to stress myself out I used to be worried all day, every day, um my, my pain of not getting what I want versus the pain I experience when somebody else doesn't get what they want because of my decisions. That's usually more so. I'll usually give in and I'll like. A perfect example is if, like me and my husband are going out and you know I'm like, oh my god, I'm like genuinely excited, I'm like I want to go here. And then you can see it in his face he's just like not really feeling it, but he, he's like I'll go if it makes you happy.
Speaker 1:There's some instances where I'm like, screw you, I want to enjoy it, like if I really, really, really want to go somewhere, but I'd say 90% of the time. Um, once he says that, I'm like I can't. I said because I'm gonna go through this the whole time, knowing that you're not happy and that bothers me, like I'd rather do what he wants to do, if it makes him happy, like as again on the other end of the spectrum, as long as it's not super torturous, like I'd rather go do what he does, like I'm very good with the flow with that and I think that stems from the people pleasing in me and and. But just dealing with my autoimmune disorder and like having to push through till I'm absolutely exhausted and saying yes to all these things and you know to make people happy and to accommodate their schedule, and you know saying yes to things when I have the energy. And then the day comes and I don't um having a business where you do have to make hard decisions and you can't, people, please, sometimes you just have to make decisions that are best for the business.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of times and I've gotten a lot of practice to set these boundaries and I think hard, I think long, for instance, right, you can maybe relate to this with somewhere in your life where I'd be like, oh, it'd be so fun. Like I love Pilates, right, and I love teaching abs, oh, my God, it'd be so fun to have an evening class. And then I think, I think about Tina Are you going to be miserable. After the initial excitement wears off, you're going to have to leave the gym. Okay, you know, chill at home for a couple hours. Come back to the gym later in the evening, when maybe motivation is low. Maybe you're tired in the winter. What if the snow's bad like? Are you going to want to do that? Are you going to be wiped out from clients earlier in the day? That's actually why, personally not that you guys maybe care or not, but if you're into my life, that's personally why I haven't committed to any evenings yet for me, because I don't know about you but doing split shifts is kind of like a thing as a trainer and it's kind of miserable.
Speaker 1:I'm one of those people, though, that, like, for me, my Tuesday, wednesday, thursdays are dedicated chaos days, like I am moving pretty much 5am till about 6pm at night, so those are pretty much just work days. Mondays are my work from home days, so they're a little bit more chill, but I still do a lot of stuff. And then Friday is more of a half day and I call it a crash day, like I'm working up until about noon or one, and then I come home and I do absolutely nothing because my brain's like fried from the week. So that's pretty much how my schedule works. And then Saturday, sunday, depending on what I'm doing, if it's like a chill day, I'll work on some casual odds and end stuff, things that don't stress me out, that I just like kind of want to work on, or we'll just be out and traveling and sometimes I don't work at all. But that's kind of where I fall now with my personal boundaries.
Speaker 1:But again and again you can maybe relate to this I don't think it's necessarily wrong to commit to something if you you kind of know the risks that you're taking of like, hey, you know, this is just a season. So like, for instance, if I was like, hey, I really do want to work on filling up my evening time slots, I know it's going to be a little bit more high energy, so I'm going to go into this and know that this is what I'm doing. This is a phase X, y, z. So I think if you frame things like that, it's a little bit easier. Again, you're almost setting that boundary with yourself. You're stretching that boundary right.
Speaker 1:A lot of the examples that I was talking about earlier was more so about restricting. You know, you're conserving your energy. You're saying hey, this is where my limit is and you don't have to be an ass about it. I think people do get taken aback because people don't like to be told no, and it's like I feel like a lot of us are kind of like yes, men. So it's like weird when we do say no, like oh my God, like they're taken aback and they don't know how to react.
Speaker 1:But I think if you say in a firm, direct but polite way of like hey, you know, like there's so many ways you could say it, like hey, you know, I don't have the energy and the tank to be able to fulfill this. You know, like there's different ways to say different things. Um, and and some people might get mad, especially if they are a people pleaser maybe they don't have good boundaries and they extend themselves. So they almost get this resentment of like well, I do all this crazy stuff, why aren't you right? Like so there's a lot of different plays on it. But getting back to the opposite end of the spectrum of committing two times when you can extend yourselves a little more, I think that's good, and I'll actually share an example with my business and then I'll start to wrap this up here. So an example with my business is, as a trainer, you kind of have busy and slow seasons.
Speaker 1:That's with most businesses, right. And I would say when I first kind of went fully independent, I was very grateful and blessed to be like not super slow, but I did definitely have downtime, right, like I wasn't working 40 hours a week, um, and sometimes, you know, I ended up working more than that, but, um, I was, I had a lot of free time. So I, during that time it was kind of like in my mind I was like Tina, you don't have the luxury to be picky, right, you don't have the luxury to be picky. You're trying to build up a schedule, so you kind of have to say yes to a lot of people, right. And I mean, as a trainer, you own your business, so you have to think there might be clients that might not be a good fit with you. They might be flaky, they might not show up. I've dealt with that.
Speaker 1:The people that, like, always have an excuse. They're always canceling on you, um, maybe they're a difficult client, maybe they constantly, um, you know, ask xyz, and it's like, oh my god they're, they're not respecting your boundaries, they're messaging you, uh, outside of work hours, this, and that there's a lot that goes with it. Right, and again, some of you who are nurses, hairstylists, maybe a similar job you could probably agree heck, even if you work in a grocery store and you have the old lady that's like constantly, um, telling you her life story and you're like I'm just trying to wring out your groceries, your total is 104, like you know those kinds of things. But I at that time period could kind of bite the bullet with those things Because in my mind my boundary was like hey, you know, we have to loosen this boundary a little bit. I got to take what I can get because I have a looser schedule, right, so some business is better. Now, of course, there is a line there, right, we don't want to like kill ourselves and stress ourselves out and have the worst client ever. But I extended my boundary a little bit. Now that I'm busier and my time is more restricted, I've learned, and I am learning, to say no to certain things because I don't necessarily need that space for that client, I don't need that extra income, and so I can be pickier about who I hold in my space. And I think that's fair, because if I say yes to everybody, my energy is drained. I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I cannot deliver a good service to the clients who do pay me and are there to show up. So it's that like fine balance, right, and again this is going to look different for everybody.
Speaker 1:This could be you, with splitting up sports. Who's who goes to whose kids sports. You know, what hobbies are your kids going to do? What hobbies are you going to do? How can you get your workouts in? Maybe you walk around while your kid is at sports practice? How? What are the boundaries with meals Like? Are you going to compromise and be like well, maybe I'll just invest in a meal prep service right now. Excuse me, sorry, you had to hear me die there.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm going to edit that out or not, but you know, maybe you know the meal prep service. Yes, you're sacrificing money for investing in meal prep service, but maybe you know that saving in time is more worth it for you, right? So you're kind of playing around with with different things, and I don't know if that necessarily falls into boundaries, but for some reason in my brain it does. So, uh, yeah, pretty much. I just wanted to share that with you guys. Hopefully that gets your gears going around.
Speaker 1:You know what you want to say yes to, what's and I think that's more what I was getting at with the, with the boundaries of like, what's a yes right now, what's a no, what are you willing to sacrifice, what are you willing to not sacrifice, right? Um, and I think that's good to evaluate, because I think a lot of us we just we we say yes, yes, yes, yes. We have all these things on our plate. We wonder why we're like crazy, like something else that's good to do is reevaluate your life and see if there are things that you need to cut back on. Say no to if you're feeling overwhelmed, if it's not absolutely necessary. It might be a no for right now to protect your peace and free up some time and space for you. So that is my thoughts for today. Thank you for tuning in and I'll chat with you next time. Bye.
