Strength Sessions: Val's Story

Today's post is a very exciting one indeed. Not only is it a first here on Strong Inside Out, but it's with one of my favorite persons in the WORLD.Today, we're having our very first celebrity interview on Strong Inside Out with Ms. Valorie Curry, TV/Movie Star and Strong Inside Out trainee. We'll chat about her journey, the mantras we incorporated into her workouts and how they've transformed into the ones she uses now, and expletive-spewing Care Bears... just listen. You'll get it. :)Not only that, but I am really excited about a very special Perk that's being offered for the very last week of The Indiegogo campaign!

Want to come hang with Val and me in New York City to chat about wellness, non-obsessive health and finding sanity in sweat with an intimate coffee chat? Available starting today, you can get a ticket to this exclusive 8-person chat. It won't be around for long, so donate now to get yours! Click here and select the "Star-Studded Sweat Sesh" Perk!

Without any further ado, here's the transcription of my chat with Valorie Curry!Amy: Hey Strongies! Welcome back to the Strength Sessions. It is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you one of my very very good friends and the person who allows me to put the title 'Celebrity Trainer' on my LinkedIn profile, Miss Valorie Curry!Val is the epitome of strength and here's why guys - besides the fact that she's a bad ass on screen as a Twilight vampire and your favorite punk rock murder on The Following (yes we all cried when her reign ended, don't you lie to me!) she kicks some serious A in the gym. Beyond just her physical prowess, which is awe-inspiring on its own, she has embraced the power of mantras in her workouts and has become stronger inside and outside of the gym because of it.Today I'm going to chat with her about her journey, her workouts that we've done together and of course much silliness as is to be expected.So Val, hello!  Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story with the Strongies today.

Valorie: Absolutely, I'm so glad I could do this.

Amy: Me too.  So we met just over a year ago when we started training together and it's just been kind of like the stars aligned and it was just to be.

Valorie: We're just a perfect fit, we're like gym soul mates.

Amy: We are gym soul mates! I'm so glad you feel the same way.I would love to delve into a little bit more of the history of Val because not a lot of Strongies know your story and I'd love if you could just share with us today.

Valorie: OK, well in terms of fitness and exercise, I grew up as a competitive Irish Step dancer.

Amy: I love that, I love just imagining that.

Valorie: It's utterly random I know, it's this whole underground world.  I started doing that when I was eight years old and I did that up until high school when I decided to focus on acting.  It's actually incredibly athletic and because I was a competitive dancer I was training three or four days a week for two or three hour sessions and at a certain level you have ankle weights strapped on because it make you lighter on your feet when you're competing, hence the enormous calves!

In high school I decided to focus on acting and theatre.  In college I studied theatre and that's how I was introduced to yoga.  It was through our voice and movement classes as a Freshman.  I really fell in love with yoga, not so much as a form of exercise but it was meditative for me and I was going through a lot at the time personally, as we all do at that age I think.  It was really great for me as a grounding, centering practice.  Unfortunately after a while I started to look at it as a workout, which made me enjoy it less and then I didn't get as much out of it spiritually or emotionally.  So after a few years I sort of fell away from that.

I'd never been into the gym, I'd never been into fitness.  I'm definitely still not a runner, I wish I was a runner, I'm really really pathetic at that.  I hadn't gotten into that.  Anyway, I met you a little over a year ago because I had been working in New York on the show The Following and I had gone through a lot of changes in my life in the last couple of years, my career had really taken off, I was really really busy and at the same time I moved across the country, I'd never lived away from Southern California.  There was a lot of personal upheaval in my life, and I had more so than ever really let my health and well-being and definitely my fitness slide.

As an actor it's complicated the relationships we have with our bodies and our image because there are very few jobs in which our physical appearance is a part of our profession.  I had always maintained that before just through food and diet.  Not only was that not working for me any more but I just didn't feel good.

I met you through a friend of mine who is also an actor and also a walking billboard because she is sick, I mean that in a positive way!  I met with you and I had only been with a trainer once before.  I was seriously dry heaving in the run up to the bathroom within 15 minutes because you had me doing like burpees and things, my first session, which I was not ready for.  I was kind of prepared to pay someone to yell at me and be mean to me until I got back into shape and it would be about workout.

I didn't expect YOU, this expletive-spewing care bear!

Amy: Hahaha!  I'm stealing that!  Expletive spewing care bear!  Stealing it.

Valorie: That's why I said you are like a soul mate, because you were SO positive and so funny, I could swear and could be me and be ridiculous and we can have fun!  You've always been great, moving forward when I did get to a better level of fitness, you're always been great in terms of adapting workouts to where people are and what they need.

I found out in the beginning that I'm stronger than I thought I was, which was nice.  You brought me into it and always had me working at my edge instead of beyond it.

It's sort of the thing with the workouts too in terms of helping empower people personally as well.  You bring them to their edge, get them as far as they can go then they know they can do that and they can do more.  It's the idea of surprising yourself with what you're capable of.

Amy: Exactly I think that's really really well said too.  Especially because people can get so stuck in being perfect.  I'm sure that first trainer that trained you is used to...

Valorie: We did once have a session which lasted about 20 minutes!

Amy: Yeah!  I do remember that one and sometimes you know, that just happens where you're just like "Well that's a little too far but now I know my limits because I've just gone past them!"

Valorie: That wasn't my care bear.

Amy: It wasn't a care bear moment, it was like an "I never want to talk to you again" moment, "until tomorrow!"

Valorie: Pretend this never happened.

Amy: Exactly.  And we did, we just pretended like nothing ever happened.It's really interesting that you came to me for the first time for training when you were going through kind of a rough time, you were super busy, which was great but you had like a lot of turmoil in your life as well.  We specifically started using certain mantras for you incorporated into your workouts.  That was one of the first things I ever had you find before we started working out together.  I would love to hear from you how that personally affected you, what kind of mantras you adapted and whether you use those or not in your everyday life.

Valorie: First of all yes, I still use that.  It's still the same idea for the mantras that work for me, which adapt to situations.  I always think of whatever the negativity is, whether it's coming from myself, or negative voices from the outside, which in this industry we face, it's the reality of it - I think of this voice, it's this other self.  When I'm working and struggling, whether it's struggling to feel motivated or struggling to move through a set.  In my life, I am stronger than that.

I'm stronger than whatever voice it is, I'm stronger than my anxiety, I'm stronger than that pressure to be a certain way.

It helps me to really minimize its effect on me, it starts to separate from myself and then it allows me to push beyond it.

Amy: That's a really good point right there, sorry to interject here but I just wanted to point out to everybody who is struggling with anything, be it depression, be it anxiety, which a lot of Strongies deal with.  It's that voice in the back of your head, it's that kind of mindset shift when you realize that that's not your voice, that's not you talking, that's all of your limitations, all of your struggle.  You're fighting to stay the same or to sink, that's what that's fighting for.  When you separate that like you did Val and start arguing back against it, that's where the power comes in.

Valorie: Absolutely.  The realization that it's not me, it's something from outside of me that I've let in and I've incorporated.  I can separate it and I'm infinitely stronger than that.  I am.  Everyone is.

Amy: Yeah, every single time.  It really comes with that practice, that repetitive use of that mantra that really creates that power and strength within.  Refusing to let that go as well.  Obviously a lot of fight goes into this and into your workouts and into your mantras and basically fighting for us, which is the theme of our Strong Inside Out tour this year, which is I fight for me, I fight for this life that I want to live, I fight to be bold, I fight to be heard.That's a lot of the message that we are trying to get out in the world this year.  Val I can't thank you enough for your support of this tour, about Strong Inside Out in general, for me.  Basically we're empowering the struggling to use fitness as a tool for recovery.  I would love to hear a little bit more from you about why it means so much you personally.

Valorie: This tour means so much to be because I look at my experience and where I am now and where I was a year ago and its like night and day.  In every facet of my life.  It doesn't have anything to do with what I can lift or what size I wear, it's my life, it's so much better and I am so much happier and grounded and empowered.  It started with you and it started in that gym because it was something I could do every day.  As bad as I felt in the morning before I went, I knew I would feel better afterwards and I knew I could do that.

It was choosing to take action and to make a choice and to be an active participant in my life as opposed to just passively reacting to whatever was happening to me, whichever way the tides went.  

Once I became capable of that and it became a habit everyday in the gym, it affected the way I lived the rest of my life.  I could make intentional choices about what I put in my body or what I read or who I surrounded myself with or what I chose to accept as a person, as a friend, as a professional.

Everything got better and I think that it comes from you and your program, again not being that trainer that bullies you into working out.  I'm trying to explain you, it's like well you're a trainer but you're also like a life coach.  You're my friend too so I get that as well.

It's so much more than the workouts.  Although the workouts are great, you will make people cry!  I know how much working with you and being exposed to that lifestyle change has affected me.  I want as many people as possible to be able to have that experience and get that spark that you give people.

Amy: Thank you!  That's so amazing.  Best review ever!

Valorie: It's so true!

Amy: You're living proof of it too Val, you've become this strong, amazing person.  Your career is really just shaping out to be amazing, it's so cool to watch you rise above everything.  Especially with acting too.  I know I'm delving back into your story a little bit, but there is so much rejection when it comes to acting, there are so many other things that are out of your control.  Can you tell us a little bit about how you deal with that struggle when it comes up in your life.

Valorie: It's constant and obviously I'm better with it now than I was a few years ago.  I grew up in theatre and while I was in school studying theatre I was also working on my first job on Veronica Mars as a reoccurring guest star.  I was doing a TV show while I was studying as well.  There is definitely a burn out factor there but after I finished school I took a couple of years and I didn't act and I didn't know if that was what I wanted.  I'd never allowed myself to want anything else or to see if I could.

I experienced the reality of how harsh it could be, and it's so arbitrarily hard. I didn't know whether or not that was something that I wanted to subject myself to.  In the same way I missed it so much.  I wanted to be stronger than those voices.  I didn't want those negative attributes or pitfalls of it to take away something that I loved.  So I decided to go back into it.  It is hard, it's a constant roller coaster of ups and downs.  When we are lucky enough as actors to be working consistently, it's also, I always talk about, "I'm a leaf in the wind!"  Our day to day lives, you don't know whether you're working today or tomorrow, you're up at 4am this day and you're working until 4 am the next.  So much of the minutia of the day is out of your control, including when you sleep or what you eat or when you eat.  It's kind of this act of surrender.

The work, as hard as it can be sometimes to be consistent while I'm working, it really gives me a space that's mine, that I have control over where I have - it's not about control, it's more about empowerment, this space that's consistent, it's mine, it's structured, for me it's sort of nourishing myself and strengthening myself, it makes all that easier.

It took a while, in the beginning with the workouts I was mad the whole time.  After the reality and the endorphin rush and everything kicked in I came to find the gym as the place that was like a B12 shot and a zanex all at once.  Being consistent made me less susceptible to those ups and downs of the rollercoaster of the life as an actor.  It's sort of easier to flow and not take things so personally.

Amy: Yeah.  That brings me back to a really important part in our training relationship too is that when you had this, I'll let you tell the story because you will tell it better than I will.  You had this realization a little bit into our training relationship when it was really hard.  I was pushing you to your edge every time, we were having fun, yes but it hadn't really clicked yet that any of the physical transformations hadn't really come in yet.  You came into the gym one morning and you told me a story of something that had just happened to you in your car.  Can you tell listeners that today?

Valorie: Yeah.  It really changed everything after that.  I was stuck on the 405 trying to get to the gym and I was sitting there in my car and I was beating myself up about how I hadn't lost weight yet or things hadn't changed yet.  As I mentioned before, I had gained some weight over that year because of stress and not taking care of myself.  I thought I needed to be back at this weight and why wasn't I.  I had this moment and I don't really know what triggered it.

I was like, "What if I just stopped?  Why have I just let go of this idea that somebody told me that I have to be this exact weight or this exact size, even as an actor".  I think everyone experiences that pressure, no matter what you do.

What if I just stopped?  What if I just went to the gym to get strong and because it made me feel better and nourished myself with food that made me feel good.  What if I just gave my body a break and let it land where it landed and see what happened.  I was having my emotional, tearful moment in the car before I came in.

It really changed everything for me.  Before that, I always looked at exercise and even food as this obligatory thing because I had to be a certain weight, it was about being a certain weight, having a certain body size, looking a certain way.  I hated it, I would resent it.  I felt like I was punishing myself.  I would inevitably stop doing the workout or binge on junk food or whatever it was because I resented it.  It was this thing that I hated that I had to do.  It felt very unfair.

When I stopped making it about a result that I felt like I had to have, all of a sudden that's when exercise became something that I would go and do for myself, because I like my time in the gym, because I like to feel strong, because I like lifting.  

I'm not a runner but it's fun to find out how strong you are.

Amy: Yeah because you choose it.  You're choosing it now.

Valorie: Exactly.  It's a choice that I'm making because it feels good to me.  Not because I think I have to be this, I have to fit into this size in two weeks or I have to do this for this photo shoot or whatever.  It was something that I was choosing to do for myself because it made me feel better, it wasn't for anybody else or because anybody else told me to.

That's when things really started to change.  I got more consistent and I was happier with it and that's also when the physical changes started to happen.  It wasn't until after I had that realization.  Then you start to see the physical changes and you start to feel better and feel better about yourself and more confident in your body.  It's this fantastic little feedback loop.

Amy: It is.  I have actually written about that before, that you can actually stress yourself out of getting results.  If you put too much pressure onto it, and it's happened to me before, for sure, it works so much better if you just allow yourself to relax into the work, trust yourself, trust the effort that you're putting into it.  Also, don't be so hung up on being a certain size, just really focus on the actual actions at hand, the movements at hand.  I think this has a lot to do with those of us who are overcoming emotional set backs too like depression and anxiety.A lot of us when we're in those positions concentrate on the overwhelm.  We get really overwhelmed very easily because we think of getting to happiness, getting to bliss.  Instead of just taking one step to feel better, taking one step at a time.  It's a lot to think about if you're like "Oh, look at Valorie Curry or Amy Clover, they look like they're so happy all the time".  I could never feel like that.  Instead of comparing yourself to others or instead of looking at this ginormous goal, just look at one action you can take today - can you take a walk around your block today?  Awesome because you didn't do that yesterday, that makes you stronger.  Can you go to the gym for 10 minutes today?  That's great because you didn't do that yesterday, you're going to get that much stronger from it.It's just these small things that really add up and I think at that moment that you came in and you told me that story it was like these chains fell off of you.  It was so amazing because you started to achieve all these physical changes like that!  It was so fast!

Valorie: It did, it happened a lot more quickly.  What's funny and what I do want to say is that I didn't get down to the weight or size that I was before, but I also didn't get winded going up stairs!  I can move furniture and I didn't have triceps and abs before.  I didn't feel good in my body because I was constantly requiring something of it, my body was like the enemy.  Once I got fit and strong, I felt so much better in my body, I enjoyed it, I felt more confident.  I don't think that would have happened if I hadn't have had that realization.

Amy: Yeah.  And nobody can argue with the fact that you look SICK!

Valorie: Thank you, you're a doll.

Amy: Payment granted.OK, so getting back into it a little bit.  We've talked about so much that I think is going to help a lot of people out there today.  I guess I just want to end with, if you met someone who's really down, who's struggling, who might just feel on the verge of giving up or like nothing matters, what words of advice or inspiration would you give to them being through some of the same struggles that they're going through now?

Valorie: I would give them what I give myself, which is you are stronger than whatever it is and you are stronger than you think you are. You are so much stronger than you think you are in those moments.  Even in those moments when it's hard, you get more out of moments that are hard and workouts that are hard that you've struggled for than things that are easy.

Amy: Yes!  Love it!Thank you so much for taking the time to be here to talk to us, to open up and be vulnerable with us today.  I know a lot of Strongies out there are going to get a lot from this.  I want to thank you again for your support for the tour, for helping us get the word out, for just being an awesome person and inspiration yourself.  Thank you for coming here today.

Valorie: Thank you so much.  I'm so glad I could do this and I'm really excited for everyone who is going to get to experience the fantastic-ness that is Amy Clover.

Amy: Ah, thank you!  And everybody is going to have a chance to experience it, even if you can't come to a physical location, we're going to have an online program that gives you detailed workouts depending on your mindset, so if you're depressed you're going to get a certain workout and a certain mindset challenge that's going to be very different from somebody who feels good and is ready for a challenge, so it's going to be mindset based.  I'm really excited to put that out there to help keep people moving this year and keep people active and striving.Thank you again Val for coming out here and guys definitely check out the Strong Inside Out Tour.*****We're in our very last 5 days of the campaign and about 60% of the way to being fully-funded! To get in on my coffee chat with Valorie, or to get any of our other super-awesome perks (and do good while you're at it), click here to donate.If you've been waiting to give, please please please don't wait any longer. Let's get our hopes up, Strongies!

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Stay strong,Amy

All Comic Con pics of Val are named: "The Following - Panel" and were taken by Thibault, used here under license CC BY-SA 2.0