Transcript: Drop It, Keep It, Add It: A Trainer's No-Guilt Approach to Eating Better
Full transcript for this episode of More Movement Please. For Donato’s structured summary, questions, quotes, and listening profile, go back to the episode page.
5 chapters — tap to expand the full text
Virginia Kinkle introduces herself as a personal trainer, bodybuilder, and gym founder, then explains why true compound strength training — not light weights — is her top fitness tip for women over 40 dealing with muscle loss.
What should you drop, what should you keep, and what should you add? Let's talk about it. What's up you guys? Famous Asha Garrett here. Welcome to More Movement Please, the podcast where I hope to inspire you to move your body more. Today I'm excited to share another awesome voice note with you, and this one comes to us from Virginia Kinkle. Here's what she had to say. Hey Ashley, it's Virginia Kinkle. I'm a personal trainer, lifelong bodybuilder, I'm also a business owner, mom, and the creator of the Drop Keep Add approach to nutrition. As the founder of a gym and co -founder of Body Mass Composition Testing, over the years I've worked with so many women over the age of 40 who really want to improve their body composition of building muscle, decreasing fat, making sure they're maintaining their bone density. But most importantly, figuring out how to move more, how to eat better, and how to make
this sustainable so that they're not burning out in the process of trying to do it all. So for women over 40, really my number one fitness tip is to make sure you're prioritizing true strength training. So I'm not talking about using the two pound dumbbells as you're doing a cycling class, but really compound lifting that's utilizing multiple muscle groups, working close to failure and obviously a safe way for about six to eight reps. And that's the true strength training that women need. to not just maintain muscle, but hopefully build it during the phase where sarcopenia, that onset loss of muscle, really occurs. So how do we prioritize in women in this age group that true strength training? In terms of nutrition, it's really about this big picture balance. So if we're moving more, which obviously I'm a huge fan of, really the next question is, what should I be eating and how do I stay consistent with
Virginia introduces the first part of her Drop Keep Add approach — dropping the shame around imperfect eating — and explains the 80-20 rule where drive-thrus and bites off a kid's plate fall into an acceptable 20%.
this? So that's where the drop, keep, add approach comes in. It's simple. It covers all of the bases on the what and the how, but it also respects women on their life instead of punishing them for it or creating feelings of guilt. So this drop, keep, add approach has three parts to it. The first is drop. And this is really important. It's dropping the shame around imperfection. I think it's a time of life where we try so hard to hone in and be perfect on everything that we're doing that if we're not, we instantly feel like we've failed. So how do we drop that shame around snacks and imperfection? I've really found that the 80 -20 approach to nutrition is huge.
So 80 % of the time you're eating. quality foods that are helping you towards your goals of building muscle, losing fat, feeling better overall. So your vegetables, your lean proteins, your complex carbs, your fruit. But the 20%, that's where life comes in. Maybe you're on the road and you don't have food prepared with you and you have to hit a drive -thru. That's okay. Maybe you're taking a couple bites off of your kid's plate.
That's okay. It is not going to be detrimental. It doesn't mean that we have to have these feelings of guilt surrounding it. It's just understanding that those cases are the exception. They're in the 20%. Primarily, we're focusing on the 80 % of quality nutrition that'll help us reach our goals. So that's the drop component. Second is the keep. So keeping the habits that already help support us with our goals. Maybe that's sitting down and eating meals with your family.
Virginia describes the second component — keeping existing habits like family meals, cultural foods, and restaurant outings — and fitting them into the 80-20 framework rather than eliminating them.
That's enjoying your favorite cultural foods. It's going out with friends or your significant other to be able to go to a restaurant and enjoy a meal. How do we work that in so that we can kind of keep the framework of that 80 -20? 80 % of what we're doing is helping us towards our goals and creating that quality food, working towards our goals. But the 20 % are the habits that maybe are a little more flexible on the food, the going out to eat or enjoying food on holidays. So it's not getting rid of that, but keeping those habits in that 80 -20 proportion.
And finally, the third component of this is adding. So how do we add nutrients around what it is we're eating to help us achieve results? So often, nutrition and diets are viewed as a sense of deprivation, of things that we can't have, that we're not allowed to do, that we need to cut out. Rather than dropping that, cutting it out, how do we keep what we're doing and add more vegetables? add more lean protein, add more water throughout the day. So by default, you're starting to make progress and you're not living in the sense of failure or deprivation. So those are the components of the drop, keep, add. It's really about creating something, an approach that's sustainable over time, that reduces these feelings of guilt and really work. with life during this phase. It provides grace, it provides understanding, but it also provides reality. So on a more personal note, I really connected with your story about
Virginia explains the third component — adding vegetables, lean protein, and water around existing eating patterns — so progress happens without feelings of failure or deprivation, then connects the approach to Ashley's 100 Days of Movement.
the more movement, please. I think the 100 days of movement, it's ambitious. It requires you to think about it. It requires work. But the way you approached it really is human and about building these small, sustainable actions continually day in and day out. So very similar to the Drop Keep ad is how do we make these small, sustainable changes that can yield long -term results when compounded over time? So it's really about dropping the pressure of perfection, maintaining humor and honesty just like you do, but having a little bit of structure and accountability in what it is that we're doing. And your approach is so, so realistic because it's not about like, look at me, I'm perfect. But it's really about having others meet you on the journey along the way and really trying to figure out the process with you. So I really appreciate that human approach to what it is that you're doing. So anyways,
I just wanted to share how Drop, Keep, Add can kind of weave in with your foundation and what you're doing. And I look forward to talking with you soon. Thanks so much. Bye -bye. First of all, I just want to say thank you, Virginia, for your message about the 100 Days of Movement. And I'm still going strong. Today just so happens to be day 277 of how long I've been at this, like being serious about it. And I have said in the past that this wasn't just a challenge I was doing. It was something that I knew that needed to be a lifestyle change. And so that's why I'm so excited about what you shared. And so I'm excited to share it with all of you movers and shakers that are listening to this podcast.
Ashley responds to Virginia's message on day 277 of her movement streak, shares that she's been eating a lot of sweets this week and feeling guilty about it, and pushes back on people in her life who've been shaming her eating choices.
I really think it's important to take a healthy approach to how you are going about your weight loss journey. That's why I do actually really like Virginia's ideas of the Drop Keep ad and, you know, looking at things as an 80 -20 because, yeah, we're not all going to be perfect. We're just not. I mean, I just went to Bucky's and got an oatmeal raisin cookie, for crying out loud. And I've eaten my way more sweets this week than I normally would and just hormonal fluctuations and all the things. And that's, well, hell, that's why I work out as many hours a week as I do is because I love food. And so I think it's really important that we... not shame ourselves for the things that make us human, the things that make us who we are. And it's interesting timing of me hearing this voice note and reacting to it because I've actually had it in my queue for a little while. And I just, you know, life started lifing and I just haven't
had a chance to get to all of the voice notes that have been in my queue. And so if you have sent me a voice note and I have not yet played it on this podcast, please know that I do still have it and do still intend to listen to it and react to it. I just have been life has been life and y 'all and things have been busy. But I do appreciate every single person who has sent me a voice note. But anyway, the timing of this one of hearing this one, it was interesting because I've been feeling hella guilty this week about how. How much I've been consuming in terms of like sweets and like I've tried to be much better about not just grabbing sweets because they're available. And what's funny is normally. Like on any normal given week, I don't really have as much of a sweet tooth as I used to, especially since, you know, I've started going to the gym more. I'm reaching for water more and I find myself craving more like healthy, nutritious,
nutrient dense foods. And so I've never been into dieting per se, but I naturally just started adapting my eating habits to be healthier. And it wasn't even intentional. It's just kind of happening. But this week, I've been real bad, y 'all, about lots and lots of sweets. I mean, I have eaten, your girl's eating a lot of sweets. And so it did make me feel better to hear this one this time because I've actually had some people recently in my life tell me like, you know, don't you need to be more careful about what you're eating? Won't your trainer get mad at you? Won't your instructor get mad at you?
Don't you need to, you know, watch what you're eating because you're going to gain all that weight back? And the shame that has been around. It's like, you know, you still got to eat. You don't just go hungry. I mean, come on. That's not a sustainable way to live your life. And I did the whole diets and pills and patches thing. I did the whole let's be in a calorie deficit where I'm only eating 500 calories a day. And yeah, I lost a lot of weight. But you know what, y 'all? I gained it right back as soon as I stopped.
And what's interesting about the way that I'm doing things now. is it feels like I can actually sustain this. It feels like I can actually stick to it and continue to drop the weight and drop the inches and build the muscle and all the things. And so if you're listening to this and you are just now getting started on your weight loss journey, I really hope that you will start looking at things from a more, I guess, holistic view.
Don't look at it as all or nothing. Don't look at things as you have to drop everything fun in your life. I mean, You shouldn't, nothing should be off the table in terms of what you consume. If you are the type of person who's like me, who enjoys sweets occasionally, don't beat yourself up for it. Because what happens when we start beating ourselves up for it is that's when we start binging even more. That's when we start beating ourselves up to the point that we are like, well, I'm just a lost cause.
I'm just not going to go to the gym anymore. What's the point? Instead, give yourself some grace. And don't feel so damn guilty. Like part of this is a message to myself, honestly, is don't feel so damn guilty, girl, for the fact that you had cravings for sweets. This week is an exception. It doesn't mean I've failed. It doesn't mean I'm a lost cause. It doesn't mean that I can't have a better dietary week next week. But then again. I might crave sweets next week too. And that's okay as long as I don't go overboard. That's okay as long as I don't completely give up on the movement and the trying to reach for healthier foods throughout the rest of the day. And, you know, not guzzling sodas and instead reaching for water. So... I really hope that this message resonated with you. I know this episode was just a little bit longer and I hope that's okay with y 'all. I really appreciate y 'all listening. If you want to share
a voice note with me, I would love to hear from you. Go to famousashleygrant .com backslash fitness and I will be sharing more voice notes with you in the coming days. Thank you so much to everyone who sent me one so far. I love hearing from y'all so much. Onwards and upwards, my friends. Have you worked out today?