Thank you for checking out The Community Conversation, brought to you by Prototype Training Systems, home of CrossFit Prototype! The Community Conversation highlights a different member of the Prototype Community each week and allows them to tell their story, share their life experience, and communicate their perspective on all things fitness.

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This is our 49th episode of The Community Conversation and today’s guest is Leah Hantman! You won’t want to miss this episode as it’s a good one!

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Mike Collette 0:02
All right everyone we have Leah Hantman Cottle?

Leah Hantman 0:10
It’s legally Hantman, socially Cottle. I haven’t changed my name yet.

Mike Collette 0:14
I’ve been saying your name wrong for like years then. That’s okay, It’s all right. Cause I rarely say it so I’m yeah and this part isn’t even going to be deleted out of the episode this is just like this is this is on there so everyone knows how stupid I am. Alright, so we have Leah on today with a Community Conversation I’m super pumped. Leah is just an amazing inspiration. She is also my business partner with empowered Rx, which we’re going to talk a lot about today, you know, Leah’s journey is pretty incredible. And she’s going to talk on that as well. But I’m just so pumped to have you on today Leah to not only share your story, but but also to bring some inspiration to all the folks that may be listening today and also educate them on kind of what you’ve been up to. I think a lot of the folks that are listening now are a lot of our members and they probably been like, Oh, where’s Leah? Where she? Where did she go or what’s going on if they’re unaware, and I’ll just kind of say right now you’re not coaching at Prototype for Prototype anymore, you’re fully out and we’re all in on empowered RX. Um, I’m really excited for you to talk a little bit about that today. But to kick things off, I would love for you to kind of just kind of share your story and your venture into the fitness industry. It’s unique, and you started in like a medical route and I don’t know if everyone knows that, so I’m gonna stop talking and let you kind of share that with everyone.

Leah Hantman 1:42
Yeah, thanks for having me Mike. I’m super excited to be here. Um, I think I’ve always been an athlete so as a young girl, I was always outside kind of a tom girl like running around and in the woods and the nature I grew up with a really outdoorsy family, camping and stuff like that. So it really got me connected to nature and movement early on. My dad is also like a workout freak. So when I was like eight years old, I’d be down in the basement like doing bicep curls to Metallica with him, which is kind of crazy when I think about it, but so he took me and got me into weightlifting and volleyball and all that. And then I started martial arts. So I did that for a really long time. Um, in addition to boxing and volleyball, and I noticed that the weightlifting I was doing with my dad really, really helped me. So I would often be one of the only females in the weightlifting room and in the high school, which is crazy to think about. It’s in the last 10 years become more normalized for females to lift weights, but back then it just wasn’t. So kind of an interesting journey there. But I got into running when my parents were getting divorced. It just was a really stressful environment. And I just went out and ran one day cuz I was kind of pissed off. And I noticed I got like a high from it like a release. And so anytime there’d be any stress, I would just kind of go clear my head with a run. And unfortunately, I ended up being assaulted in high school. And I didn’t tell anybody, it was a really, really, really stressful time. And I used fitness to heal from it basically, or to cope, I would go running and clear my head I would find strength in getting stronger inner strength and getting stronger. And yeah, I just became a long distance runner. So unfortunately, without any kind of guidance on this stuff, and having some stress involved. I ended up being an over-exerciser. And with under-eating and not knowing how to feel properly, I kind of ran my body into the ground. I was you know, going out on 20 mile runs and doing crazy long distance workouts and I feel really good mentally. But I definitely needed to learn how to fuel so I start learning about nutrition and the right way to do weights and all that stuff. And I got my personal trainer license when I was 18 and then decided I wanted to go to school for clinical exercise physiology. So I went off to Colorado State and was there and then I ended up shattering my ankle and having to come home for surgery. And so that had me finished up my degree at Westfield State, which is actually where Mike went and Steve went so kind of small world. I think you were a year before me, right?

Mike Collette 4:46
I graduated in 2010. 2006 to 2010.

Leah Hantman 4:55
Yeah, so you were a year before me so I came the year you graduated. But yeah, so then after that I started working in physical therapy and kind of corporate fitness world. Really interesting. I ended up working for grog farms putting their first world wellness program together for them. And so I would go from the hours of midnight to 7am. And like work out with these truckers in the trucks. So they would have their truck stops at ground farms. And I’d be there waiting for them in the middle of the night to lift weights and teach them how to stretch and help them reduce their injuries. So it was really a weird first kind of job outside of college, but it paid really well. And it was different. So I really enjoyed it. And then I went to UMass Medical School where I thought I wanted to go into like, primary care to help women in women’s health particularly, I had an interest in holistic health and using fitness and exercise and nutrition. And just empowerment to help women kind of take charge of their health and you know, heal from things because I had been for so much. And I hated it. I literally could not handle, I would come home and be like, I would cry. I would hate it. I would feel emotionally drained. I would disagree with how they treated patients, not to say that they’re treating patients wrong, but I definitely think there’s like a sick care model that it doesn’t really help people claim independence over their health. And it was really un-motivating to feel like I have put so much time and effort into school. And everyone’s expecting you to continue right like if you have this chance to, to go to UMass Medical School. Why wouldn’t you see that through? So it was really, really hard to walk away from that.

Mike Collette 6:53
Hard school to get into right?

Leah Hantman 6:55
Yes, it’s very hard to get into that school. Um, but it was the best decision I think I’ve ever made in my life. After that, I ended up running the wellness program and the gym at UMass Medical School instead. And I was so happy compared to the work I was doing there. But I still wasn’t fulfilled, I kind of felt like I was going through the motions. And then, unfortunately, um, I was assaulted again. But this time I used self defense which I had, you know, spent a long time learning, I’m a self defense instructor and a boxing instructor. And the situation didn’t progress because I was able to defend myself, which was scary, but it ended up being one of those situations that really, really impacted me because it brought back a lot of the stuff I hadn’t dealt with in high school. So the court process lasted like a year and a half to two years, somewhere around there and it was more traumatic than the event itself. For anyone listening out there like reporting is the right thing to do. But it’s the system is definitely not set up to help the victim it’s definitely the onus is on the individual to prove that it happened and these events typically happen behind closed doors or out of sight. So it’s really hard unless you have video footage or proof to prove that these things go on. And so it’s a really devastating experience to go through two years of court and it kind of destroyed my health so I ended up losing like 20 pounds. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. My job was threatened because it happened to be another medical student that was at the school that did this. And so I was in constant fear every single day that I would lose my job and that I would be retaliated against that I would be shamed and it just was like every single day was just so hard. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, just a second. But yeah, so after I left there, I started my own business doing like nutrition it wasn’t formal yet I just kind of within a week was like I can’t I don’t know I’m kind of get things done kind of person. So I was like, I’m going to do this. And I had about 53 clients by the end of two weeks doing a nutrition program. Um, and it was good but I was like too scared to do my own business long term just because I had no business experience and my confidence was pretty shattered after the whole lassa workplace situation so I kind of just was unsure of what I was going to do next, but I was happy having something and then my Mike reached out to me. I think you found I don’t know how you found me.

Mike Collette 9:56
I that’s a good question. I from what I remember you had a- so there’s like job like listing platforms out there like zip recruiter and you know like indeed and things of that nature and your like resume was on there and if you if you pay on the platform you can see people’s like resumes that are like looking for, like jobs. So I remember like looking for someone that had like nutrition experience because we were looking to like improve like our nutrition program at Prototype. And like I saw you on there and then I saw like your education background. I was like, wait you went to Westfield. I was like, do I know you? I think I stopped you on like LinkedIn. And I’m like, like, Why do you look so familiar? And I feel like I met you at BSC at one point. Like, yeah.

Leah Hantman 10:50
So weird.

Mike Collette 10:52
Yes and then I like and then I just reached out to you and I think I reached out to you a couple times. I don’t think you got back to me the first time but I was like, pretty like persistent. And then then I think you’re like, Oh, yeah, we can have a conversation and then yeah, I’ll let you finish the story. But yeah, I think it was like I saw your resume on one of those job posting platforms. And I reached out to you almost like, like, okay, I want to, I want to talk to you, you have this amazing experience. I want to learn more about you. And he also had like, because what the credentials that I was looking for was like nutrition and like CrossFit, like level one. Which CrossFit experience which you you had because you were going to CrossFit in Worcester. Was it a Center Mass?

Leah Hantman 11:37
Yeah.

Mike Collette 11:38
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I was like, Oh my god, this is like, perfect. So yeah.

Leah Hantman 11:43
Yeah, I remember that. So I was a little bitter about the whole workplace thing after what I had been through. So I kind of ignored my first few attempts at contacting me.

Mike Collette 11:52
II’m pretty persistent.

Leah Hantman 11:54
Yeah, so but then I got back to him because and then as soon as he told me, he was a values based company and had me take some surveys and some some tests to identify my values. I was like, Okay, I trust this guy. This is cool. Like if he’s aligned with values and growth and development, like that’s something that I’ve been looking for in a job that is new. Most places don’t do that. So if you guys don’t know, a Prototype is a ddo, or a developmentally deliberate organization, which means

Mike Collette 12:25
Trying to be, we’re trying to be. That’s our goal. Yeah, we’re getting to it but yes.

Leah Hantman 12:33
Yeah. It’s a really unique kind of place. And I remember when I left my last job, I told my husband, I was like, Okay, I want a job that evaluates me is really harsh with criticism, like constructive criticism, helps me grow, helps me become a leader and doesn’t just like say, good work to everything without helping me, you know, better myself. And then, you know, Mike started telling me about all the processes, he has to develop coaches. And I was like, Yes, this is, this is awesome. I feel really good here. So yeah, then I came there, I worked there for like a year and a half before COVID hit. And when COVID hit, all of my clients started to show signs of, like, extreme anxiety and stress. And their health started to deteriorate. And basically, I took the experiences I had with my own trauma in the past and what I did, to kind of heal my health and, and feel better again, and I started applying those with the women that were having body image struggles and things like that. And it started working really well. And I said, Oh, man, like, this could be something. And so I asked Mike, you were open to anything I kind of wanted to do, which is awesome. You’re always like, so supportive. Um, yeah. And I started the program and empowered at prototype first, and then it kind of grew and got to a point where I wanted to pursue it. And Mike was really supportive about helping me with that. So that’s kind of how we got to today.

Mike Collette 14:02
Yeah, it’s, it’s such a journey that you’ve been on, right? Like from getting into fitness, like at a young age, you went through these incredibly traumatic events that you’ve taken your personal experience, you dealt with them in certain ways you found that there were things that were not right, not quite right, right, like over exercising, like stress, anxiety, fear, these emotions around it and these things that like as we’re a result of the trauma and then you took this healing approach and this experience, and then also the mindset you had around the medical experience, right, because you were in Medical School and you’re like something’s not right here as well. And then, you know, where we are today with Empowered RX is you’re working with a lot of young girls now who have, you know, eating disorders and have gone through trauma. And the the thing that is so impressive is you have this real world experience, which I think is so unique in the sense because from my understanding, you know, there’s a lot of women have gone through trauma, but you’ve gone through different levels of experience, and you’ve coped with it in different ways you have this learning that you can’t be taught in a school setting, right? There’s like experiences like, is really important here. And you’ve taken that and now it’s become this program that is making a huge impact on not only these girls’ lives, but these women that are in this program, I would love you to talk a little about, like, the impact that you’re seeing that empowered has been making and you know, kind of like for folks that don’t know what EmpoweredRx is maybe kind of define like, what the program is and what it’s doing today.

Leah Hantman 16:26
Yeah, so EmpoweredRx is a mentorship program that helps girls and women to reclaim their health after it’s been disrupted by trauma or eating disorders. So 86% of women have had at least one traumatic experience in their life, most women have had multiple. And then there’s like a statistic that says 98% of women have had disordered eating at some point in their life.

Mike Collette 16:51
Sorry to interrupt. Can you define the traumatic experience? Because I think that, I don’t know, like if people that are listening, know what that’s defined as, right?

Leah Hantman 16:59
Sure.

Mike Collette 17:00
Yeah.

Leah Hantman 17:00
Yeah. So a traumatic experience isany adverse life experience that causes distress or overwhelms one’s ability to cope. So it could be divorce, it could be a car accident, it could be an assault, it could be a natural disaster. It could be mental health disorder, it could be being marginalized racism, it can come in all different forms. But basically, it messes with one’s ability to feel confident in their identity. And it also ends up deteriorating their health, because it’s all impacting the nervous system, which basically controls every system in our body.

Mike Collette 17:37
I’m sure social media is not helping, especially with a lot of younger kids.

Leah Hantman 17:41
No, yeah, so social media is impacting people, especially with COVID. Right? They were taken out of their school and social settings, and then they spent a lot more time online and behind the computer. Yeah, social media and diet culture. It’s all impacting that diet culture can be traumatic in and of itself, depending on your own experiences. So yeah, we basically work with women who have had these adverse life experiences, we call them aces. And we try to help them understand how their trauma has impacted their health. Because a lot of women will come to us wanting to lose weight, or, you know, thinking that your body’s not good enough, or saying, you know, I’ve been on these crazy diets, I don’t know why nothing’s working. And when we look at them, we realize that they have a history of trauma. And their nervous system is completely overwhelmed. They’re like, life is riddled with stress. And they’re completely immersed in diet culture. So we have a Health at Every Size approach, which means we believe that you can have internal health at any size, which basically breaks the stigma that you have to be super fit, super lean, to be healthy. And we’re kind of trying to redefine what it means to be healthy, so that lots of individuals don’t feel like they’re pushed out or marginalized for their body basically, so they can take control of your health again.

Mike Collette 19:00
And one of the things that so- when empowered RX was a program like a prototype similar to we have like, you know, Personal Training, we have CrossFit class, Thrive class, we have Project Nutrition EmpoweredRx was a program at Prototype, and you are working primarily with a lot of adult women and applying these mentorship practices. And, you know, we’ve navigated to this huge problem that you’ve kind of discovered, and that there’s a bigger problem with the way that things are being kind of treated right now. Right? We’re not talking about, you know, these girls that have, you know, eating disorders. Can you talk a little bit about that maybe kind of the path to how, you know, empowered is you know, so again empowered the mentorship model, but finding this kind of this niche or this, this population that that needs a lot of needs to be addressed.

Leah Hantman 20:11
Yeah, so every single woman that is enrolled in our program has been through trauma of some sort. And every single woman also happens to have disordered eating. So it’s no coincidence that trauma or adverse life experiences and living in today’s kind of diet culture, society, can produce coping mechanisms surrounding food relationship, the most common being binge eating disorder, and then the these disorders that are more vague, and then anorexia being the least common. But what we’re finding is that since COVID, there’s been I think it’s like a 300% increase in eating disorders, which is absolutely terrifying. The statistics prior to COVID, were that one in five adolescent girls would have an eating disorder, three in five would have disordered eating. So an eating disorder is going to be a set diagnostic criteria that’s met by the Association of psychiatrists, psychology, but then you can have all these different symptoms that kind of mix and mingle between certain levels of disordered eating kind of on a spectrum. So we’re looking at like four out of five girls having disordered eating. And it’s a huge problem. So we got an influx of clients who had already been through the treatment system, which means that they had gone to inpatient services where they would stay at residential for a couple months at a time. And sadly, we’re seeing most of these girls come out more traumatized than when they went in. So what happens is, as you take all these girls with vastly different levels of trauma, and backgrounds, and you put them in, and you try to use a cookie cutter treatment model, where they’re all getting the same care, they’re triggering each other, they’re learning new coping mechanisms that are unhealthy, like self harm and things of that nature. And then they’re actually being force fed, essentially, it is necessary right to restore weight, so that the brain can function at a higher cognitive level for them to actually do the healing work. But they’re given you know, upwards of three to 4,000 calories a day, forced to eat your food almost at every meal. And they restore their weight very quickly, so that when they come back, the relapse rate is almost, it’s I think the recovery rate is only 22% of people will actually fully recover from an eating disorder in their life, which is not much.

Mike Collette 22:41
So about 20%. So one out of five.

Leah Hantman 22:45
Well, will reover.

Mike Collette 22:48
When you say recover, recover over their life?

Leah Hantman 22:50
Over their life. Yeah. And the relapse rate is about 70. I forget the statistics, but it’s in the 70 percentile. Most women will end up relapsing within their first year. And if we look at the reasons why they go in their weight restored, they’re not given tons of coping skills that match their individual issues, then they’re pushed back into school where they’ve missed maybe two to three months of social, you know, activity with their friends, they’re not able to participate in sports, again, exercise in the eating disorder treatment world is usually off limits and not seen as allowed, which we view very differently. And I’ll talk about that in a second. But the whole model is very rigid, when it can be quite contradictory to have eating disorders that are rigid based on food rules and guidelines, and then to go for treatment, be kind of punished for having rigid food rules and then be given rigid food rules. So the girls end up pretty confused, pretty disoriented, with new unhealthy coping mechanisms. And then usually it’s accompanied by anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns. So their whole body falls apart. The average girl coming to us started off between about like 75 to 100 pounds when they normally would be 120, 130 plus. So we’re looking at some severe severe health conditions, heart rates in 20s to 30s. Loss of hair, pre early onset osteopenia or osteoporosis, severe digestive issues, anxiety, depression, muscle aches, bone breaks, like at very young ages, these girls are typically between the ages of 12 and 18. So it’s quite tragic. But our model does believe in the transformative power of weightlifting. You’re a weightlifter, Mike, you know, and most people listening to this are probably weight lifters. There’s something really cool about going in and throwing a heavy barbell around and the more weight that you’re able to lift. The more you realize how cool the human body is, the more you start to respect the training process, which means fueling sleeping recovery, and it all just kind of starts falling into place. We also work with intuitive eating, which is teaching the girls to pay attention to their hunger cues, their thirst mechanisms, teaching them about nutrition. When they’re in the treatment centers, they’re not taught nutrition, they’re just given a food plan to follow. And that creates a huge disconnect, right? When we understand why we’re doing something, we buy into it a whole lot more. So we work with nutrition education, and then we do empowerment and body image coaching as well. To help girls we’ll explore like art therapy, we’ll do writing, we do group calls, and things like that to help the girls kind of feel like they are not alone.

Mike Collette 25:45
There’s so much to unpack with everything you just said.

I’m sorry, that was a lot.

No, no, no, no, it’s good. But for the folks listening, if you didn’t pick up on it, the current system is broken. Empowered RX is taken an individualized approach to help these girls and by implementing the weight training strategies, plus mentorship plus community is making a massive impact on these girls and the people in the program. COVID has expedited in like, I think the number you mentioned is like 300% is expedited. Or I should say even accelerated a lot of these problems what like about like COVID? Like, in general? Like, what about this, like this worldwide thing that we’re all still kind of going through? Like what in your opinion is like, made this such a like, as expedited? that 300%? Like, what what about this whole thing? Is it the isolation? Is it like the anxiety like what what about has made this an even bigger problem?

Leah Hantman 27:09
Yeah, so a lot of times eating disorders are rooted in anxiety, depression, and the need to feel control over something. So when we look at the pandemic, and the nature of kind of what happened, it came out of nowhere, the country didn’t really know how to handle it. So they just shut everything down. People were isolated, they were taken away from their friends and family. Lots of people were without jobs, which impacted the whole family unit. And then these girls are now sitting behind a computer screen on zoom for six hours a day where they see themselves, either that or they’re having to go out in public with a mask, or they feel like they’re maybe not seen as a person, but just kind of seen as a body. And then they’re also having a lot more time on their hands to spend on social media. And unfortunately, the TikTok world was exploding at this time as well. I’m not on TikTok often. So I think it’s pretty toxic. Actually, for our youth, there’s a lot of influencers on there who preach about weight loss, they tell you how to do workouts, how to diet, how to fast, and all these girls were getting this information from these influencers kind of just they were inundated on a daily basis with it. So it’s kind of that lethal combination of unfortunate factors at the same time, and then all of a sudden, you’re rushed back to school. As if nothing happened, there was no debriefing, there is no psychological intervention for these students. And when you’re young, you don’t really process what’s going on, you just know that there’s tragedy and there’s stress and you don’t really know how to cope. Stress Management isn’t something that’s focused in on schools eating disorders aren’t really talked about in schools. So it’s just a really bad combination of things Ithink led to that influx there.

Mike Collette 28:59
Yeah COVID has certainly expedited a lot of things and it’s really unfortunate that a lot of these problems and you know, these- just all the stuff that you just mentioned is just accelerated but, you know I’m an optimistic person, the bright spot of all this is the solution that empowered RX is providing. I would love for you just talk about because I get text messages from you every single day and they’re like, makes my day about the impact that you’re making on these women and these girls and EmpoweredRx and the cool thing is the impact that they’re making on their selves too and the impact of making on like each other with the community component to it. Um you know you don’t have to share any names, but we’d love to hear maybe some of the like the results or like what you’ve seen so far with some of these folks in the program.

Leah Hantman 29:58
Yeah, so um, we have seen some amazing transformations in just a short time, which is really cool. But also sad to know that there’s not help out there for more people who are going through this. So we had one individual who has been sick since the age of 12. She’s now 17 has been in and out of treatment centers over the past five years, pretty much once or twice a year, which means going to residential for multiple months at a time, weight will be restored. And then within like a month of coming out, there’s a relapse. Within a month of working with Empowered she had started to restore weight. Within three months her weight was restored and she’s now maintaining, she’s happy. She’s back to her sport. She’s weightlifting, she wants to heal. Now she doesn’t feel like anything is against her anymore. She’s mad at the system, she feels like help was withheld. She felt like she was a prisoner. And they didn’t trust her to just make decisions and all it takes is kind of like teaching people that it’s okay to take risks and try new things. And by believing in them and trusting in them, they kind of are allowed to trust in themselves again. So they start taking small steps. And yeah, so this girl is fully weight restored back at school and just in a couple months and it’s been years and years, she’s been denied treatment. So that’s been a really rewarding situation for us. And that’s been happening with lots and lots of girls. So you’ll hear similar stories, we have one girl who, who came to us having had an assault and an abusive relationship, struggled with bulimia and anorexia for her entire college career. And within a month and a half of working with empowered, she is happy and actually can say she loves her body again, and has stopped engaging in those behaviors. So it’s a quick turnaround, um, that’s not going to be the case with everybody. And that would be naive for me to think we can always just help everyone out there. But there’s definitely some evidence that we’re seeing that this approach is working and that the holistic and more personal approach is needed. I think it’s gonna help change the status quo with how eating disorders are treated.

Mike Collette 32:22
Amazing. So I mean, with the number of people that are affected by trauma, and that may be listening to this, they may know someone that could benefit from at least having a conversation or learning more about empowered or maybe that’s listening to this right now that’s like I need to talk with Leah, how do people get into contact with you and I know there’s a ton of free stuff like there’s a free Facebook group, you just launched a low barrier entry program that kind of brings like the community side of things. You want to talk a little bit about how people can reach out to you get in contact with you, but also kind of the different options that are out there. People want to like just do something and start today.

Leah Hantman 33:10
Yeah, yeah, so you can reach me at Leah@EmpoweredRx.org. You can also find our website at www.empoweredRx.org. We’re also on podcast, we have a podcast, it’s on most major streaming platforms. And you can just find us at @EmpoweredRx. And we have a lot of different programs, we have the free community Facebook group, which you can email me about, we can get you in there immediately. That’s something you could start today we’ve got free resources almost daily in there, people are commenting with community support, they talk about their struggles, we help you guys come up with solutions and everything like that. And then we have the all in club which we just launched, which is really exciting, it took off really quickly. Um, we basically believe that in order to fully recover, you have to go all in, there is no way to kind of keep engaging with the eating disorder and get your life back. your eating disorder takes your life from you or you take your power back from the eating disorder. So the commitment to go all in means that you are committing to do scary things on a daily basis that are going to help push past those sticky points where you’re kind of stuck in this quasi recovery state. So that is $30 a month to join. It’s a text group and once a month there is like a my Facebook kind of workshop 30 minute workshop, super low cost. But the impact is huge because you’re literally engaging with girls and women on a daily basis that are going through the same thing as you and each girl is responsible for kind of telling a different challenge of the day. So an example might be okay today we’re posting a recovery quote and then I’ll 30 minutes We’ll post a quote that will kind of pump them up for the day or Okay, take a photo of doing something that’s healing today and share it with the group. And we just had one of the girls who is new to empowered, she went, we haven’t set an all end date. So it’s like a recovery date. So she threw herself an all in party last night, she had a couple like glasses of Mike’s hard lemonade, which is kind of a fear food for her. Because of unknown calories, she and her roommate and her dog took all the while her dog and her dog was there, she loves her dog, they took all the food in her house, and they sharp it all the labels off so that they couldn’t see calories or nutrients anymore, and they like celebrated this new start. So they’re kind of going all in together. And we’re going to see a lot of women kind of doing that just kind of going all in celebrating the start of a new journey. So it’s really exciting low barrier to entry, as you were saying. And then for people who maybe are a little bit more immerse in diet culture, or need a higher level of health, or community, we have the empowerment coaching program. And that is a monthly one to one coaching session where we dive deep, depending on your needs, the topic of focus will be different. But that is also accompanied by a weekly women’s meetup or girls meet up depending on your age, where we dive deep as a group, and the benefit of that is hearing everybody’s experiences and learning from each other. And knowing that you’re not alone, it’s been a huge impact so far. And then if you are really medically compromised, and deep in the eating disorder, recovery process or early on, or treatment centers haven’t worked, we have our medical intensive program, that are custom made packages that take into account anything you need, we do body image work nutrition, we can meet with people every single day, if that’s what they need, if they want an alternative to the treatment program. It really is based on the individual with high medical needs, though.

Mike Collette 37:00
So many options, which is great. And we can add those links into like the description and all this stuff as well. So folks can kind of tune in but this is awesomely going deep into empowered, I’m so glad that we share this stuff for the folks that are out within the prototype community that want to learn a little bit more about Empowered or may be unaware of all the amazing things that are that have been going on. And the help in the results that these these girls and women have been getting are just it just, it’s changing. And I can see it’s changing the status quo. And that was like one of the things that we talked about early on, and like the business planning was like, is changing the status quo to the current approach this broken model and you are just just incredible that you’re doing this and you’re helping these girls and you’re changing their lives. And I’m sure you know, I don’t know if you’ve reflected on it, and you’ve thought about this, but like, you know, if EmpoweredRx was there when you were going through these things, like the impact it could had on you and now you’re taking night saying I don’t want that to go to happen anyone else. And that is why it’s just so freakin powerful. And I love it.

Leah Hantman 38:20
I want to thank you because for anyone who knows me, I’m not a risk taker. I don’t try scary things all the time. And Mike has been 100% supportive of me getting outside of my comfort zone, kind of giving me the push I needed. And you were willing to like take a risk and help me start this program. So I really, really appreciate that.

Mike Collette 38:40
Appreciation all around. It’s all good. Um, we have time for the Spitfire round, which I know you’re not familiar with, but we’re gonna we’re gonna dive into it. So three questions. I always say that I should change these questions because I just I aske them every time but it’s they’re still challenging. First one is favorite movie, favorite TV show of all time. And what are you currently binge watching? So there’s three answers there. Favorite movie, favorite TV show, and what are you currently binge watching?

Leah Hantman 39:14
Okay, favorite movie is easy: Stepbrothers. Um, favorite TV show? That’s hard. I don’t know if I have one. Is that allowed-to say I don’t have one?

Mike Collette 39:25
Has to be one. So the easiest way to think of this question is that if you are flipping through the channels if you’re if you’re watching TV, and the show is on TV, you’ll start watching it even if you’ve already seen the episode.

Leah Hantman 39:39
I would say Breaking Bad.

Mike Collette 39:41
All right, there we go.

Leah Hantman 39:42
Yeah, Breaking Bad. And then I’m binge watching right now um survivor. Sam, Sam on our staff got me hooked on survivor. It’s crazy and the new season just started. Have you watched it?

Mike Collette 39:57
I watched survivor before but I was gonna say you and Sam have like zoom parties to watch survivor episodes because I know she’s like the biggest survivor fan.

Leah Hantman 40:06
She got me back into we did our community scavenger hunt Sam and I partnered up and we made it survivor themed and Greg and I have been binge-watching it ever since. So

Mike Collette 40:14
Awesome. Okay, second Spitfire question. Favorite musician or band of all time and your favorite song of all time? I know you’re a big big music fan and big musician. You can tell by the violin the drums the guitar. I mean, what other instruments you have behind you? The piano? I know piano’s back there somewhere.

Leah Hantman 40:45
I got a didgeridoo too but that’s been a fail.

Mike Collette 40:49
Is that the like [imitating didgeridoo]?

Leah Hantman 40:50
Yeah.

Mike Collette 40:51
Oh, that’s awesome.

Leah Hantman 40:53
I can’t do it though. It doesn’t work. Um, so I would say Red Hot Chili Peppers or Incubus? They’re definitely Thai or tool I like I can’t decide those three and then my favorite song like that’s as a musician that’s not possible to have a favorite song I like all kinds of music I like classical I like rock I like metal I like pop I like it all so I can’t ever come up with a favorite.

Mike Collette 41:20
Alright top three favorite songs top of your head.

Leah Hantman 41:24
Oh this is hard. I really don’t I can’t do that. You got to ask a different question.

Mike Collette 41:33
A song of all time.

Leah Hantman 41:36
Morning view.

Mike Collette 41:38
Favorite song by Red Hot Chili Peppers?

Leah Hantman 41:48
I don’t know I honestly don’t know I couldn’t I this is too hard.

Mike Collette 41:52
We got one. Last question is what is your favorite hobby outside of working out?

Leah Hantman 42:01
Music. Playing music, yeah.

Mike Collette 42:07
Anything in particular that you’re playing right now or you’re working on?

Leah Hantman 42:11
Um, I really like the drums I just started those this fall I bought this drum set off of Jon who bought it off of Russ. So it’s like to fit in the Prototype fit fam. Drums are really fun because you can just kind of like I don’t know. Yeah, um, piano was really cool. I like to do that when I’m stressed out because it’s you get lost and focusing on reading the music and stuff. So yeah, those two.

Mike Collette 42:36
Drums and piano I love it and some good bands. Several as my favorites up there. So a lot of good stuff. Well Leah, I really appreciate you being on the Community Conversation.This is awesome. I appreciate you sharing your story, sharing your journey. Talking about EmpoweredRx. I think a lot of the folks that are listening found a lot of value and were educated today a lot of the knowledge that you dropped and for all the folks out there listening thank you so much for tuning in the Community Conversation every Monday we have a new episode. To get your week started. You can check us out on our YouTube channel or on any of these streaming platforms, including Spotify. So again, Leah, thank you so much for being on.

Leah Hantman 43:17
Thanks for having me.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai