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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
261 | Why Being Inconsistently Consistent Is Your Secret Weapon
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Are you caught in the endless cycle of fitness extremes—going all-in for a few weeks before burning out completely? You're not alone. This deeply honest conversation tackles the unspoken pressure we face to be consistent in ways our bodies simply weren't designed for.
The fitness world wants us picking a lane and staying in it—bodybuilder, runner, yogi—but what if embracing variety is actually the key to sustainability? We explore how society's rigid expectations clash with our naturally fluctuating energy levels, creating unnecessary guilt when we can't maintain perfect consistency.
Most of your fitness journey exists in what I call the "meh zone"—about 80% of your workouts won't feel amazing or terrible, just somewhere in between. Understanding this bell curve normalizes the experience of having varying performance levels and prevents the shame spiral that happens when we inevitably fall below our impossible standards.
I share my personal journey through injury recovery, where I went from training intensely five days weekly to being limited to walking and gentle yoga for over a year. This forced adaptation taught me to value different movement forms and build back gradually—a lesson many of my clients with chronic fatigue, autoimmune conditions, and neurodivergence have similarly embraced.
You'll learn practical strategies for working with your body's natural rhythms instead of fighting against them, including energy tiers for matching workout intensity to your daily capacity, and identifying "bare minimum" habits that ensure forward progress even on your worst days.
What if your version of "enough" could shift each day and still count? This simple mindset shift might be exactly what you need to break free from fitness perfectionism and create sustainable, lifelong results. Share this episode with someone who needs permission to honor their body's changing needs while still making progress.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Toned but Tired podcast. On today's episode, I wanted to chat a little bit about not being the same every day to be successful, because this is something that I feel like maybe a lot of you naturally are and I think society likes to beat it out of us, for lack of a better description. It's like I've struggled my whole life trying to fit into one thing and I think a lot of people are like that, like our brains, like the idea of, like the stereotypes, like, oh, you're the goth girl, so you have to have black hair and the dark makeup and be into horror and dark stuff. You're the preppy goth girls, so you have to have black hair and the dark makeup and be into horror and dark stuff. You're the preppy girls, you're gonna be the cheerleader, homecoming queen like I know I'm using high school stereotypes but maybe you're a corporate office girly, so you have to dress that business casual and have certain interests. But, especially as I think social media evolves and we're exposed to different types of culture, I think this has evolved a lot. Media evolves and we're exposed to different types of culture. Um, I think this has evolved a lot, for sure, and we're traveling more and we're kind of moving outside of our small towns and relocating to different areas.
Speaker 1:It's like, you know what, if you are into like goth stuff, like for me, I would say that I dress pretty like basic white girl and there's nothing wrong with that, but dress pretty like basic white girl and there's nothing wrong with that. But like I dress basic white girl but, um, you know, I like like all types of music. I like heavy rap, uh, heavy metal, classic, all that stuff. It wouldn't necessarily fit me, same thing with, like my art taste and style and it's like it's a mishmash, right, and there's nothing wrong with that. So like, why can't your fitness be that way too? I feel like there's definitely this element of all or nothing. You know you have to pick bodybuilding and if you're a bodybuilder, you have to play the part and you have to dress the part and you have to lift a certain way. If you're powerlifting, you can only powerlift and you have to lean into that heart. If you're yoga, you're a yogi and everything's so gentle and smooth, and if you're Pilates or a runner, you know there's so many paths. But again, why? Why can we not mix and match, depending on our mood, our season.
Speaker 1:I think, don't get me wrong, I still think it's important to have a core goal and a center, but I do think also that we can have some side quests, if you will, to keep us entertained, right? Like you know, if your goal, let's say your goal is weight loss, you want to lose like 10-15 pounds, you know, let's say bare minimum, you're gonna do two days of some sort of weighted strength training. Like you're following a basic plan. You know, maybe they're full body days and one works a certain day and the other works the other. But like what about the other? Like two to three days? Maybe you want to do paddle boarding or yoga or mobility, maybe you want to run a little bit Like mix and match, but I think, also keep a core base if that makes sense, right, it also feels. You know this expands beyond, like picking your workout type.
Speaker 1:If I'm not hitting, you know, the same intensity every day, my energy is not the same, my meals I'm not hitting right, I must be slacking. I see this all the time. I see clients that are struggling because they start their fitness journey and they do week one and they check all the boxes perfectly. You know they hit each workout, they kill it, um, because they're fresh, because their body's fresh. They prep all their meals and it may not even be the whole week, it might even just be the first three days and then, inevitably, because this happens to all of us, something's gonna happen. You're gonna get your period, you're gonna be late on time, you're not gonna be feeling it as much that day. Maybe, for whatever reason, you, you left your prepped lunch at home. So many factors, and as soon as we dip below whatever invisible standard we set for ourselves, we're immediately a failure and it's like I give up, I suck, I'm failing, I'm done. But here's the thing Like your fitness journey, it's more of those mistakes I don't even want to call them mistakes, adjustments, I like to say turning the dial up and down, you know, with intensity, you know that's what makes your fitness journey.
Speaker 1:I just made a post about this. I think there was just a podcast episode about this as well. The bell curve right, the standard bell curve. Right, the standard bell curve. This works for like trends in general 80 percent of your movement and your diet is going to be like meh, it's going to be all right. You know, the top 10 is going to be amazing and perfect and the bottom 10 is going to suck, but everything else is just meh.
Speaker 1:So, like, don't beat yourself up if a workout isn't absolutely stellar, amazing. You have this incredible like endorphin rush and you're sweating and your muscles are popping. Like that's great to strive for. But if you get less than that, like that doesn't mean you're a failure or you're not progressing the right way, or you're doing something wrong, like if you have a period or an injury or whatever, and you're like you know what I just gotta do, like a 10 minute stretch today're? Like you know what I just got to do? Like a 10-minute stretch today, cool, you know. Or I just walked like 20 minutes today, awesome, you know. Or I did my workout but I felt, you know, like 5 out of 10, 6 out of 10. Okay, that's okay. It's better than doing nothing and giving up completely.
Speaker 1:And again, same goes for energy, same goes for meals, because, in the long run, trying to be perfect every day and giving a hundred percent every day, uh is not sustainable and you're going to burn out. And that is why maybe you or people you know, I know people, I see, certainly, um, they get stuck in this, this cycle of I'm going to start something, and they maybe last a month, if they're lucky, on whatever extreme approach they're taking and they get results, and then it's not sustainable. The first time they meet a roadblock, they feel like they're failing. So they just jump off the bandwagon and they feel like a failure and they gain a ton of weight back and they, like, start over again once they feel motivated enough. Right, that's not how it should go.
Speaker 1:You have to lean into those imperfect days, the less than days, and I think something I tell myself I always say progress, not perfection. Keep showing up. You're putting in the reps day by day and think about on your low energy days, like I always think that you're giving your best. You're giving your best, given the circumstances, every day, right. Like you could giving your best. You're giving your best given the circumstances every day, right, like you could beat yourself up.
Speaker 1:I'm that person too. I'm that person that I'm like well, if I'm not in the hospital or like crawling on the ground, blacking out, technically, technically, I could be doing more, right. So I always got to gut check myself. I'm always checking myself, putting up boundaries, right. That's is where my brain goes. I've been like a perfectionist my whole life, which is why I'm so passionate about this, because I know what it does to your body.
Speaker 1:I've been through those extreme rushes of burnout and like falling off the wagon and restarting again, like if you're feeling like absolute trash and it feels like you know you gave 20% that day. You know, maybe that was your 100% for that day, that was what you could get right. Or there's the day where all the stars align and you feel amazing and it's like, yeah, you gave your 100% that day. Great, that was the energy you could give that day and everything in between. So don't beat yourself up, because you are truly always doing your best.
Speaker 1:And if you're not, if there's that little gut instinct I will say there's a lot of psychology in this as well. If there's a little gut instinct, that's like you feel guilt and maybe you feel like you're cheating. You know, it's that kind where you kind of say, f it, you eat the bag of chips, you skip the gym for no reason other than you just don't feel like going. You know, but you kind of don't acknowledge it. But you know it's there and you pretend it didn't happen. That is when you need to step your butt up and figure out what's going on. Is there like a time management issue? Is it a motivation issue? Are you doing something that you don't like? And this is actually where something like personalized coaching would be helpful. So if that is you, I would definitely recommend reaching out to me and go on my website you can apply, you know, just to see if you're interested in coaching and we can kind of chat to see if that could be a good fit.
Speaker 1:I love working with people one-on-one to really figure out what their their roadblocks are, because often it's not just like work harder, you know, do more workouts and like eat better. Usually there's something underlying that you personally aren't even aware of that we kind of need to bring to the service and work through, and once we get that, it's just it. Everything becomes so much easier and you can get those long-term results right. So that's all good things there. And then, just kind of going back to me, some of my personal experiences with this kind of stuff is I do have high and low days and I have high and low phases.
Speaker 1:Back to, you were probably well, not probably you maybe were around when I got my groin injury. Like I was great before that. I was on a really good streak. I was deadlifting my max. I was kind of eating what I wanted. I didn't really track. Good streak, I was dead lifting my max. I was kind of eating what I wanted. I didn't really track, but I was mindful about my eating. I felt really good about my physique. I was lifting five days a week. I was training hard, doing circuit stuff, sweating, pushing myself. I was training like an athlete and I felt really really good. And then, I don't know where, you know, it was just one day. I didn't have a moment where I felt like I hurt something. It was just like.
Speaker 1:Later on, after the workout, my groin started bothering me and like that was it I. It took over a year to heal. On top of that, I got diagnosed with my Hashimoto's Um. I was on a bad birth control pill that wasn't a good fit for me, so I had to switch that and, like during that period of my life, all I could do was walk and yoga and really pay attention to my eating and that was it. I wanted to do more.
Speaker 1:I hated it, but I had to keep going and do what I could do and I'm grateful for that, though, because it did introduce me to lower impact workouts and I've been slowly building myself up over time, as things have healed and as I've regulated my hormones, to train more and more intensely, and I could say that I'm at a point where, like I can run now you know I just did five miles yesterday, not straight through, but like on and off running for five miles. I can lift I'm not lifting super heavy right now Just like moderate, you know, doing Pilates, doing classes, doing stretching, doing yoga, all that stuff, and I don't have any issues. I don't have issues with my energy, I don't have issues with my pain. But it took a lot of zoning in focusing on proper supplementation, setting boundaries with, you know, making sure I don't overdo things and slowly building up drinking enough water, making sure I'm hydrating with electrolytes, eating balanced meals, making sure I'm eating enough, getting enough sleep and I know that sounds like a lot, but if you want to train at that level, you have to treat yourself like an athlete. Now you can do much less and still get great results, and that's kind of more if you're just like a lifestyle person, and that's kind of the basics that I teach first, but I would say that would be a low energy period for me.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, we have the high energy, where it's like I'm feeling good, like I said yesterday, and there's been many times recently where my body just craved running. I know if some of you hate running, you're probably like what the hell? Um, but I just craved running and I was like I'm going to do it. And I used to hate running outside and I've actually gradually, um have done it now where I really enjoy running outside, especially with the weather being nicer, and, um, my body's like we just want to run, we just want to move, and and I've been listening to it and I've been introducing more running and jogging and you know, I listen to what my body wants and then I also give it what it needs. So I have that nice mixture of high and low days. I'm not always like running five miles every single day, like today. I ran five miles yesterday. Today I'm probably going to get like stretching in, like mobility, and then that's going to be it, because it's like 90 some degrees out. I might get to walk it in the evening, but it's gonna be like 92 in the evening. So we'll see um, but it's all about when you zoom out and you see the bigger picture. You know, are you putting in the reps like 80, 90 percent of the time, right?
Speaker 1:And then just some examples from clients that I've worked with um, I work with clients that have chronic fatigue. You know, they're burned out, they're busy, maybe moms, maybe just working a lot, have fur babies, whatever it may be. They feel like they have to do it all and it's like they should not be jumping back into a crazy routine. We start with the basics, you know, maybe 15, 20 minute workouts, and we build them up from there and that's what they can do. That's the energy they can give and I've had a couple of clients like this and their energy improves. They actually, you know, feel better. They start to see inflammation and bloating go down. They lose weight, more energy, weight, more energy.
Speaker 1:I've worked with neurodivergent clients, whether it be ADHD, autism, even like hypermobility. Hypermobility can go along with neurodivergence often, but it doesn't always have to be. You know where your joints. You're like hypermobile, you know a lot of them, the way your brain works and even if you kind of just have neurodivergent tendencies right where you feel like, oh my God, I'm so ADHD like I get bored so easily and like or I forget to do this, or the monotony. You know I give them a different type of workout. Or maybe you have an autoimmune issue or chronic illness and you just don't know what you're going to feel like day to day. I have clients like that as well, where we kind of have two to three workout tracks and you know I ask them how are you feeling today? Do you want to stretch? Do you want to lift, like, do you want to just kind of do something in between? And we will go that route, depending. So it's very flexible and it can be customized.
Speaker 1:You don't feel like you're stuck to one way. You know, I just constantly think of these buff bros that are on steroids on the internet, that talk down to everybody and think they're the greatest thing since sliced bread and they're like this is wrong, biohacking this, biohacking that ice bath, this. You know I'm better than than everyone. If you don't do it this way, you're wrong and you're failure and you suck like, like I see that messaging so much on the internet, even with females um, mainly because it gets attention, it gets views, it gets likes, it's very, uh, viral because it's very black and white and people. It kind of scares people and they're like, oh my god, like I can't eat fruit, it has sugar in it and sugar is gonna give me cancer. And it's very black and white and people, it kind of scares people and they're like, oh my god, like I can't eat fruit, it has sugar in it and sugar is going to give me cancer and it's terrible for my liver and I'm going to get diabetes, like. Like it's just, it's stupid. It's stupid guys. Okay, you don't need to follow that.
Speaker 1:And then another thing too is with with a couple clients that I had a client who learned to view walking and stretching as valid progress. Like those, those people one of you may out there listening, may be this way they again you feel like you gotta go balls to the wall. You feel like you gotta constantly um be pushing, sweating crossfit style workout burpees if you are not sore and dying the next day you didn't do anything. Well, again, how far can you do that before burning out? Right, we need to sustain this long term, also for the level of activity that you know you might do, like that most people, you have to realize you have to recover and fuel your body properly to keep up with that. You know you can't like floor your car around everywhere and never fill up the gas tank right. It's going to blow up and it's going to shut down and that's exactly how your body is. So you know, most of the time we're not eating enough or properly or balanced to support that kind of working out, we're not sleeping enough, our stress levels are too high. So we've got to kind of meet you where you're at and on those off days. You know if we need to maintain with walking and stretching, those are great recovery techniques and over time, the more you learn, you kind of earn that right to be able to bump up the intensity and do more and progress more once you get the solid foundation of the basics.
Speaker 1:Not everybody gets there, Not everybody wants to get there, but the option is there if you want it, okay. But the option is there if you want it, okay. So to kind of wrap things up, you know you don't have to be the same every single day. You know, just keep showing up with where you're at. A lot of this comes to being in tune with your body, which is a skill that I teach. I think it's one of the number one most important skills being in tune with your body, listening to what it tells you, what's sore's tight, how's your energy, how's bloating, how's hunger, just different things, and you'll be able to adapt accordingly.
Speaker 1:Um, and then just a few quick tips for you to help with this. You know, some tactical tips is use energy tiers Like kind of. I usually do like a scale of one to 10 for most things, like with lifting difficulty. But you know you can come up with your own scale, whether it's color coordinated or you use numbers. But base it off how you're feeling, like it could even just be three levels, like level three is like I'm in a go hard mood, like I want to go hard, I'm pissed off, or I have energy, I got good rest, I want to go hard. Or level one you know you're like I'm dead, I'm on my period, or I'm just not feeling it.
Speaker 1:Today I'm just going to stretch ands I always say what's your bare minimums on your absolute worst day, what is a movement and nutrition habit? And you could even do like mindset recovery as well that you could do where you say I checked the box today, I got it done. You know, maybe it's a walk, maybe you're walking your dog. Uh, maybe you literally just pick like two or three stretches. You stretch for like five, ten minutes, you know whatever it may be, ten squats, you know. And then like a nutrition thing are you drinking your water? Maybe you do a protein shake, maybe you get a serving of veggies, whatever it is right and again, track this over time because if you just go day to day it doesn't tell us the whole picture. But if we zoom out and we see that bigger picture, you'll be able to see trends better and you can also kind of like trick your body again with these side quests of like if you do music to kind of maybe pump yourself up, maybe if you aren't feeling it, you have that go to music that gives you that endorphin rush to keep going.
Speaker 1:Um, or you follow, you know, your cycle, your period cycle, your menstrual cycle, uh, because everybody's different, some people don't get really affected and some people get really affected. And mood I'm gonna say with um a grain of salt, because I'm not the biggest fan of always listening to your mood, because your mood and your feelings aren't always a predictor of what needs to get done. Um, but again, that's up to you to distinguish of like, hey, I'm just being a little bitch, I'm just kind of like lazy today. It's not like I'm truly like sick or exhausted and need to rest, it's more of just like a mind game, so I should push through. And again, that comes to knowing your body and learning you know the ins and outs of what you're truly feeling, and I think that's where a lot of people kind of go wrong with this stuff. That's where they miss the boat.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and with that again wrapping up, a question for you to reflect on is what if your version of enough could shift each day and still count? What if your version of enough could shift each day and still count? But all right, guys, I hope that this podcast episode helped. I hope it made you feel better than not being good enough because you are enough. Each day You're giving your best. I commend you, I'm proud of you, and if you enjoyed this episode, feel free to share it with somebody that you think needs to hear this. That would mean a lot to me. That is how I get the word out about this podcast and I can continue to make these. So thank you again for tuning in and I will catch you guys in the next one. Bye.
