Everyone please welcome my new friend, Health and PE educator, as well as the founder of Pretty Little Lifters, Tiffany Ragozzino to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! Tiffany and I were connected by a mutual friend who I recently shared a conversation with (hi Maddie McGuire!) because of our shared passion for dismantling diet culture and leaning into strength and wellness.
Tiffany is battling a social media driven world in her classroom to remind her TikTok-loving students the importance of having physical strength and general wellness, and she leads by example. Her stories of conversations she’s had with students and the ways in which she’s working to even educate their parents when she has the opportunity gives me hope for our future generations when it comes to helping them to foster a healthy self-image.
I walked way from our conversation feeling empowered as heck, and I hope you feel the same! Please check out The Pretty Little Lifters podcast and follow Tiffany to stay updated with the incredible work she’s doing!
“ We do a lot of weightlifting, we also do Pilates too. We're well-rounded; we're balanced. But sometimes I'll hear them say, “Oh, I just want to do Pilates.” And when I hear it and I'm like, “That's great for muscular endurance, but what are we gonna do for muscular strength? This is what we're doing for muscular strength.” I'm constantly course-correcting. I'm trying to teach them, “This is long-term health and fitness. That's what I want for you. So I'm not gonna do any quick fixes because that doesn't go with what I'm teaching you.” So it's almost a little bit more of an accountability, I guess you could say. It helps me really practice what I preach. The information that I'm sharing with them, I really do want it to be aligned because I do feel like they will find me more authentic when they see me also living my truth and doing the things I teach them.”
- Tiffany Ragozzino
Megan Gill: Would you want to start by diving into a little bit of your own body image story, your body image journey, and kind of what led you to your work today?
Tiffany Ragozzino: So it's so funny you asked this question because I was recently talking to a friend about body image, especially since I work with teenagers and I teach PE and health, and we were sharing our stories. It's interesting navigating – I'm a millennial, so I grew up during those primitive Y2K moments. When I was a teenager, just getting all of those stories of being skinny and how nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. That was a wild time to grow up when the celebrities gracing the covers of magazines were extremely thin. A lot of them had eating disorders, and that's what we were used to. That was the expectation.
I've always been on the thinner side, so I kind of fit into that socially-acceptable body. And it was really interesting because when I started wanting to do weightlifting, a lot of people were like, “Oh my gosh, don't get too big. Don't get too manly. Don't get too big,” and I was like – and I was just excited to do really cool stuff. I was just like, “Wait a minute, I want to do really cool things with my body!”
Megan Gill: Yeah, “I want to lift some heavy shit out here! I want to be strong!” Yeah.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Exactly. So it was very interesting, and you know what's funny? I think when I started doing a lot of things with street training, it was the first time that sometimes like being on the thinner side or lean didn't always work to my advantage because I remember there was this one photo shoot I wanted to do and participate in, and the person whose gym it was was like – and he didn't say it directly to me, but I kind of heard through the grapevine where it's like, “Oh, she's a little too thin. We want somebody muscular,” and I was like, “Okay, is this where we're shifting to?” But I kind of wasn't mad at it, you know what I mean? I was like, “That's cool. This guy wants to show strong women. He wants to show a different body type and not maybe more of my typical body type that you see already.” So it was actually a really cool experience to be on the other side of that.
Megan Gill: Yeah, it kind of shook up your world a little bit? In a world where we always have known where the ideal is, “How small can we be?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Exactly.
Megan Gill: For then someone to come in and be like, “No, actually, maybe we want someone a little bit thicker or with a little bit more muscle,” or whatever it may be. Yeah, I could see how that's such a wild concept.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, exactly.
Megan Gill: But also it’s so important to reflect all types of bodies, right? Not that your body isn't needed, but just having a diverse range of different body types.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, exactly. And this was, you know, in the earlier 2000s still. So it was kind of cool to hear something like that because you didn't get to see that very much.
Megan Gill: Right. Totally. I'm also a millennial, so I feel you.
Tiffany Ragozzino: So you get it.
Megan Gill: I get it, right there with you.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah. So it was definitely an interesting transition. And what's funny too is when I did start strength training, that shift that I had even in the beginning, because at first it was really like aesthetic, you know? It was just like, “Okay, I want a six pack. I want to see my muscles. I want to be so lean” And then there was a shift when I really started getting into Olympic lifting, gymnastics training, more like CrossFit stuff, I was like, “Wait, I need to be really fed. I need to be fueled. I need to be strong to be able to keep up with all these really cool athletes and figure out how my body can move in a different way.” And it's interesting because that even came with its own – body image is so weird. It's so weird because you go from one extreme to the other.
So then there I was in this new arena of like, “I want to be strong like them. I want those muscles. I want this,” and then it was just like a whole different fixation of being strong and having that six pack and not being so just thin and skinny. I just feel like that pendulum has just kind of swung back and forth, and it was really healthy to step away from aesthetics a little bit and really focus on what I can do. But it is kind of interesting to just always see that pendulum swinging a little bit.
Megan Gill: Like societally, you mean, or for yourself?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah. Yeah, I think societally because, unfortunately, as we've seen throughout history, women's bodies are trends, unfortunately, you know? And so, I don’t know if you remember when booties were in, and then everyone was like, “Okay, we're gonna squat, we're gonna hip thrust, we're gonna do this.” And you can see the reflection in fitness, in types of movements people are doing, in the way we dress. So it's really interesting to kind of try to separate yourself from that. But as a society, it's really hard to, you know?
Megan Gill: Right. Of course, of course. Especially in this time where everybody keeps using this phrase, and I'm like, okay, I get it. It's like, “Thin is in.” Like, “Thin is back.” The early two thousands are back, and it is very true because in the way celebrities now, these people that have access and have money, have access to like these other tools to alter their bodies, or just easier access, I would say. It is quite clear, I keep seeing – and I try not to judge also, but I can see that people are not wrong. Thin is very much around us right now, and a lot of people want that. That's the ideal again which does suck because strong is so important.
I'm curious also because, as someone who – I mean, I grew up dancing. I've been pretty active my whole life. I’m deep into a hot yoga practice myself right now.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Ooh, I love hot yoga
Megan Gill: Oh, it's been so, so good for me. Mentally, I feel like I've never been stronger. I actually have triceps, and I've never really been able to feel a tricep in there before, so it's really cool. Like, “Wow.” I feel really, really strong and really mentally well, and I have a really great relationship with my movement practice. It's taken me a long time to get here.
When “thin is in,” – I'm just using that phrase as like a general way that we're trending right now, societally, as far as body goes, in my eyes, I think it takes the focus off of strength of general wellness and off of building that muscle so that we can age and be able to walk and move and have that strength and flexibility and mobility still. That's really important. For me, it's really important. I look at my parents, and I want them to be strong as they age. I understand how vital that is. So I'm just curious to hear your take on that.
Tiffany Ragozzino: It's crazy. I don't know if you're on TikTok, but like the rise on SkinnyTok has been interesting, to say the least. And it's weird. So I started teaching at the school. I work at an all-girls school, which is amazing. It's the ideal population that I want to work with.So getting to talk about these topics with my girls, with my high school students is so important. But I started working there in 2018. It is now 2025. And like I said, that shift that I've seen in these seven years, I saw it.
When I started, it was very like girl power, we're gonna be strong, diversity representation, body diversity. All of that was really present, and I was bringing a lot of that into my curriculum, and I still continue to do that, but at the same time, the world around us was also really promoting that, right? It was everywhere. Brands were getting on board. And yes, was some of it performative? Now we know, yes. But it wasn't just me. Collectively, a lot of people in the health and fitness industry were on board, but now we're in 2025, and I am seeing the decline.
So I feel like, as a health teacher and PE teacher, I've had to work a little bit of overtime because now that it's swinging back the other way to this whole, you know, SkinnyTok situation, I have students – I now hear different things that I didn't quite hear as much during the building phase of my program with my students. And now I'm hearing things about, like, “Snatched waist, calories this,” just very much more like diet culture stuff where I worked so hard to deconstruct that for them and teach them. But because society is now latching onto this other piece, it's like, “Wait a minute, y'all are making my job harder! What's going on?” And also making sure I'm aware of the content that's being put out there, like I mentioned, things on SkinnyTok. It is a hard place, and I know teenagers are on there. They're seeing this. They're navigating this. The rise of like Pilates being more popular, for example.
We do a lot of weightlifting. We also do Pilates too. We do everything, right? We're well-rounded. We're balanced. But sometimes I will hear little things and I'll hear them say like, “Oh, I just want to do Pilates.” And when I hear it I'm like, “That's great for muscular endurance, but what are we gonna do for muscular strength? This is what we're doing for muscular strength.” So I'm constantly course correcting and really trying to teach them because they're hearing certain things that they hear on social media. You are seeing that shift to the softer things, people want to get thinner. It has been a very interesting thing to navigate, and this is when it comes back to education, and those of us that have the education, we understand the science and the basics and stuff that need to happen so that we can avoid these up and down trends, you know?
Megan Gill: Yeah, and try to cultivate a safe space for your students, the students that you're impacting, which I'm grateful that they have you. Thank god they have you, oh, my gosh and not someone who is feeding into all of the BS going on in the world right now. But yeah, really being able to cultivate that safe space and be a trusted educator that can help show them, “No, we don't have to do it that way,” because I think, right now, it’s very reflective of the age in which I grew up in, which we grew up in being millennials, generally speaking, where we are getting so many signals from the outside world and from media – and obviously now social media is just such a huge thing. It's a lot more than MTV and Seventeen mag.
But how important and beautiful and necessary to have that space where you can hopefully make a bigger impact on these young girls, young women and break them out of what I think I very much got stuck in myself as a young high schooler, early-college student. I didn't have someone like that. I'm so glad that you are doing this and that you are truly educating. How many girls do you teach?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, so I have a lot of students. So every year I have about, it depends, anywhere from 100+. This year I had, like, 90 health students, and I had about, like, 100 PE students, 100 health students. So yeah, it's a lot.
Megan Gill: That's incredible, yeah.
Tiffany Ragozzino: But it's great because I can reach more people and that's kind of why I wanted to move to high school because I knew I would be able to reach more people.
Megan Gill: Yeah, absolutely. And at such a pivotal age okay, they've learned so much, and now it's like make or break kind of, at least from like my experience. I was really, really impressionable at that time. That's amazing, and you are in Los Angeles, is that corect?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yes, I am here in Los Angeles, specifically West Hollywood, and I work closer to the downtown area. So it's great because we have such a diverse community - you know, different ethnicities, different socioeconomic statuses. So it's really great to be able to, you know, cover a lot of bases.
It's interesting though, because the parents of these students, like the age range would be probably like Gen X, I want to say, is probably the age range. And so, they also kind of dealt with a lot of that stuff too. And a lot of them didn't have anybody to learn it from too. So I even find that sometimes educating the parents is also half the battle, right, and teaching them, because if nobody ever taught them, if they didn't get into social media and start learning from other people kind of doing this kind of work, they are not really gonna know this too.
So the parents are very supportive, they're very excited about the program and the content that I teach. But it is sometimes interesting. You will hear little old-school ways of thinking sometimes when it comes to this kind of stuff and diet culture because they just didn't learn it. We didn't learn this in school, you know? We were fed very different things.
Megan Gill: Yeah, oh, it's so true. But also, how wonderful is that, that not only are you impacting these young women but then also their moms? Oh, my gosh. It makes me emotional.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, it's really nice. And just even getting to teach my mom some things that I learn. That's definitely a different generation that she's in. So yeah, it's really important. And that's one of my hopes is that more educators really modernize their programs to include, you know, topics like this.
And also one thing that I think people forget in the health and fitness space is that everyone has their target audience, and that's valid, right? But social media is very accessible to everyone, and teens are on there, and they're watching. So anytime I see misinformation or just fearmongering or anything like that, I'm like, “Can we not?” Because there's just so many impressionable and uneducated people, and I don't want to say uneducated in a bad way. It's just like we did not learn this stuff. So it's not an intelligence thing. It's just a lack of knowledge.
Megan Gill: Right, a lack of like accessibility this way of approaching health and fitness, which was very much not a widespread thing, not a thing that was really spoken about too much when we were younger. Oh, my gosh.
Does working with these young women help you connect to your own body and body image story?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, Yes.
Megan Gill: I’m curious to hear more about the tie between all of that, yeah.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, it's so funny that you asked this because I really think working with this population of teen girls has, one, made me a better teacher and coach, but as you mentioned, also help me kind of put my ego aside and kind of check myself and some of my internal biases and things that I think and really unpack, like, “Where is that thought coming from?” When you start working with teens, especially because you've been there before and it's almost like I'm thinking about my teenage self, and I just want to give her a hug, you know? And I think about what I was thinking, what was I insecure about, where was my brain, what were the challenges? So I understand what these kids – I can put myself in their shoes. And then sometimes when I get too wrapped up in adult world and I'm like not thinking about it, sometimes hearing them say something, sometimes I want to course correct and be like, “No, don't think that!” you know, or like, “This is wrong!” But I'm like, “Wait a minute, I get it. I understand what you're trying to say. I understand why you feel this pressure.”
And so, sometimes it's like everyone's gonna find their own way. But it's definitely helped me connect to also, you know, putting less pressure on myself, on aesthetics, you know, and being someone who is in the health and fitness industry, obviously, that is kind of a piece of it sometimes. Anybody would be lying if they said it wasn't. I've done fitness modeling, I've done different things, and, yes, aesthetics is always a piece of it. But it does help me really focus on the long run. And I'm trying to teach them, “This is long-term health and fitness. That's what I want for you. So I'm not gonna do any quick-fixes because that doesn't go with what I'm teaching you.”
So it's almost like a little bit more of like an accountability, I guess you could say, and helps me really practice what I preach and the information that I'm sharing with them and making sure – I really do want it to be aligned because I do feel like they will find me more authentic when they see me also living my truth and like living – I do the things I teach them, and I think that makes a big difference, and they see that. Kids are smart. They can see through it. They know when somebody's teaching something and they don't even care about it. So I think my students know I'm passionate about it, and like I do the things I teach them. This is not just me reading something to them. It's like no, they know she does the things
Megan Gill: Yeah, and that you're like a walking, breathing, living example of a leader that is showing them what it can look like down the road for them, whih I think is also super important. You, I can imagine, are just probably such a role model, whether you know that or not, for so many of these young women. I’m like, “Yeah!”
Tiffany Ragozzino: It's a cool job!
Megan Gill: Also to practicing what you preach, I find even for myself now that I'm having more public conversations and just being more vocal on my social media and even in my friend groups and with the people around me, the practice what you preach thing, I've found myself like having moments of, “Whoa, okay.” Or I'll laugh at something or someone says something, and it's like once you see it, you can't unsee it with all of this like diet culture, beauty culture, body image stuff. And it's just such an interesting self-exploration to go down that journey of like, “Okay, how am I really gonna live truly as an example of what I want to see in the world and how I want to see other women and other people caring for their bodies and caring for themselves, mentally and physically.”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Totally.
Megan Gill: It’s funny because some of my friends will be like, “Ope!” They'll say something, they'll make a comment usually about their own bodies, and then they'll look at me like, “Body image police!” And I'm like, “Yeah! Good!”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yes! I'm gonna hold you accountable! I'm gonna hold you accountable, yes!
Megan Gill: Yeah, and hold myself accountable in turn like you were saying too, yeah.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Mm-hmm. And just like you said, I would do that if I heard my students say something negative about themselves or their body. I would probably clap back and be like, “Excuse me! No, no!” and give them something positive or hype them up a different way that has nothing to do with how they look. I'm still human, and sometimes I will catch myself or my husband will hear me say something negative about myself and I'm like, “Stop, Tiffany!” Like. “No, no! You wouldn't let your kids do this, you wouldn't let your students do this, so no, we're not gonna do that. Slow your roll,” you know, things like that.
It's made me more aware of that and just made me very conscious of the things I say, the way I show up on social media, the things I post. It's made me very mindful because there's just so much content out there that I want to make sure that this is a safe, accurate, educational, entertaining space but showing up in a way that feels really good.
And here's the thing too, these kids are smart. A lot of them are on social media, and they find my account. My account is public. And so, that's kind of how I see it. I was like, I want to make sure if they see something, that's me, and I’d feel proud, and I would stand by that statement or post or whatever I was wearing, I would feel good about that. So I definitely think that's like an important piece to me to be able to show up authentically and be proud of them seeing it. Also, because I know some of them watch, I'll post educational things where I'm like, “I want them to know this.”
Megan Gill: Yeah, you’re like, Lowkey, you all need this.”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah! Like, “Okay, can we learn this? You should know this. We talked about it in class.”
Megan Gill: Yeah. Also, you're doing, in a sense, the counter-work to all of the other accounts out there and the people posting misinformation. To me, I’m like, ugh, it's such a heavy weight to carry. But also, you're not doing it alone. There are other accounts out there. There are the good ones out there. I know. I follow so many of them.
I find myself thinking like, “Why me? Why am I qualified to talk about this? Why am I qualified to have these body image conversations?” And it's like, whoa, whoa, okay, okay. Just because so many other people are doing it is actually amazing. It’s actually incredible because the more people that are talking about this and debunking this stuff and fighting back at diet culture and breaking down industry and all of these beauty standards and all of this stuff, the better, the more the conversation continues at a broader level.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah. Definitely. And it's funny because obviously I know that you're a dancer, so you probably can identify with this. But I remember I had a student years ago, I think it was like my first year there. So they've, you know, probably graduated. Yeah, they've graduated by now. And they were a dancer, and I had them for PE. And she was a beautiful dancer. She was a ballerina. And she came up to me, and she was just like, “Miss, how can I make my calves smaller?” And I was like, “What do you mean?” And she was this beautiful dancer with dancer calves, and she's like, “My dad said my calves are too big.” And I was like – literally my heart sank into my stomach, and I was just like. Okay, Tiffany, what are you gonna say? How are you gonna respond? Because internally I wanted to go educate the dad, you know, and be like, “Hey, can I teach you something?”
Megan Gill: Yeah, “Can I teach you five things?”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, and I was just like, “Hey, you know, you are a ballerina. You do a lot of movements that are going to require you to be up on your toes, and you are flexing your calves. You need those calves! Those calves allow you to be that dancer that you are on stage! So we don't want to make them smaller. They are fine the way they are, and you need them, so you should be so gratefu, and let's appreciate those calves!” And she smiled and stuff, but it's things like that.
And I know you're a dancer, and it goes back to that education and having these conversations with adults too. So I know sometimes parents follow me too, and I'm like, “Please do!” Listen to what I'm saying. Let me teach you something!”
Megan Gill: Yeah. Heck yeah. That's also really cool. Is it like a, “Ah!” moment when a parent follows you? Not in a weird way, just in like a, “This is amazing.”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Honestly , it's so funny because especially with profile names and pictures, you can't really tell who's who. So I don't really know unless they tell me. So sometimes I'll be at open house, and a parent will be like, “Oh, I follow your page. I think it's so great!” And that makes me so happy, because I used to teach elementary school before I became PE and health, and I still had – you know, I was running The Pretty Little Lifters and everything, but I felt like I had to keep my worlds very separate, so I would never talk about my fitness content in education. And then finally when I switched to PE and health, I was like, “I think I can talk about it, and I can talk about how I'm a PE teacher and this and that,” and it all kind of connected in a really good way.
Megan Gill: Oh, that's amazing. That feels like true alignment. I think what I'm out here cultivating for myself too is like, yeah, it all can go, it all can fit together. It all belongs together So that's really cool to hear. I love that. Yeah, oh, gosh. The dancer calves.
Tiffany Ragozzino: I know, you probably have so many stories.
Megan Gill: That just hits deep because my brain is thinking, well, everybody has different calves, right? All of our calves are different sizes, just like all of our hands are different sizes. I think that that's a rabbit hole I've been going down lately just remembering that we are all so different, and it's so unfair to sit here, myself, and look at the person next to me and judge myself based off of that.
And then also just like bringing it back to strength too, which I feel like is your bread and butter, like, “You need those calves in order to execute the movements that you do.” I do think that is the important piece in all of it. When I'm in a bad body image day or in a spiral about something about my body, bringing it back to, “Whoa, this body carries me through life. Like you, I snap myself out of it. What is good about our body? What is good about this body part that I'm talking shit on right now?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yes, exactly.
Megan Gill: What does it functionally do for us in the world, you know?
Tiffany Ragozzino: And I think that does help you, when you really go back to the function and what you can do, it really can snap you out of it and give you a little bit of gratitude.
I think, recently, I saw a photo of myself from – I was somewhere with my family. Oh, I think we went to like Medevil Times or something, and they do like a group photo, and it was very cute. We did this cute little group photo, and when I got the picture, I remember seeing my arm, and it just looked really – I couldn't see my muscles. It just kind of looked like a blob there, and instantly I could feel that inside, I wanted to be like, “Ugh, my arm! There's no definition. I can't see my muscles.” And I was just like, “Tiffany, it's okay. You're human. And this is years of conditioning that you are trying to reprogram.” And I literally was like, kind of like you mentioned, I told myself, “You can do a lot of pushups with those arms, so you need to chill. You need to chill. Everything's fine. This isn't the end of the world. You're fine.”
Megan Gill: Yeah, totally. And then the other piece of that too is the ways in which we carry our bodies can determine how they look in the mirror, on camera, in a picture, which is just the whole other concept that I think is a little bit like, “Oh yeah, well of course.” But I always have to remind myself of that. There are just so many factors, so many factors that go into this that it's so sad and so unfortunate that we are so susceptible to the way they make us feel.
Tiffany Ragozzino: There's a lot of us having these conversations and doing this kind of work, and as you mentioned, we're also working on it. Nobody's immune to it. I feel like even when they say they are, there's always just this little piece that we just – we're human and there's society and pressures, especially on women. So it's like we're not immune to it, you know? And just like everyone else, me talking about it and having these conversations, it helps me remember too because it's so easy to slip back into those thoughts. It's super easy to slip back into those thoughts. They don't go away. You just get better at managing them and flipping that switch a little bit faster, you know?
Megan Gill: Oh my gosh, yes. Mic drop. That's so true. I'm really grateful that I've found myself in this type of work and down this particular journey of body image because I think it's really, really helped me more than anything. I can only hope that like someone out there in the void is like lis tening and reading and, you know? I know someone’s out there with me. Maddie's out there with me. Hey Maddie!
But you know, I'm like, wow, at the end of the day, ultimately, this journey has been so, so healing for me to just pull me out of this cycle that I was stuck in for so many years and for so long. And I'm really proud of sticking to that because I think it's also, for me, it was 2020 during the pandemic when I started to really, really look at why I felt the way I did about my body and my changing body and food and exercise and all of it. I really started to take a really objective view at what was going on and kind of break down some of the stuff and start to go on that journey in therapy and with myself and by creating art around it and by talking about it. It is so important, and I think it also is important for the people – of course, like you said, no one is fully, “I’m healed!” No one out there, even like you said, if they say they are, they're not. But it's so important for us who are still working day in, day out, to practice what we preach, to be leading in these spaces, and to be having conversations like this and to be speaking up about this stuff because it's like, yeah, this is work for the rest of our lives. And it really, really, really does get easier, and it does get more fun the more you talk about it and the more your friends start to side-eye you and they start to talk shit about their bodies.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yes. No, it's so true. And the thing is – and I was talking about this with my students the other day. I was like, “Our bodies are meant to change. They're not supposed to look the same.” And we had this conversation about – I told them, “You know, you're in high school right now. This is your high school body. It's okay that it changes when you get to college. It's okay that it changes post-college. It's going to just keep changing. That's what happens to our bodies.” And I think sometimes we get stuck in these thoughts that we're going to be the same or be able to maintain something forever.
I'm gonna turn 42 this summer, and it has been interesting. When I turned 40, there was just this weird switch that went off in my body where it's like, “Hey, we're gonna shake things up for you. We are gonna change a little bit. Your body composition is just gonna shift, and you didn't change your habits, but we're just gonna shake things up.” And I was like, “What is this? What is happening right now?” And that took, and is still taking, a lot of mental gymnastics to try to recognize that like, okay, I'm getting into a different phase of my life, of my age, of my journey, where it's like I'm not the same as I was when I was 30. I'm 40 now, and now my body wants to hold onto body fat more. That's new! That's different, right? And it takes a lot of work. So it's almost like the goalpost is almost moving.
I've definitely realized like, oh yeah, if you're hung up on aesthetics, that makes things really, really hard as you age.
Megan Gill: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Instead of bringing it back to, like you said, long-term health, like the longevity of being able to have muscles throughout the rest of your life and to focus on flexibility and general strength and general health, which I also think is kind of a radical concept for millennials who in this, like, you're-gonna-clean-your-plate era and this like – my parents didn't go to the gym. They were physically active out in the yard and we were an active family, but they were not like going to Pilates.
Tiffany Ragozzino: No. You know, it's so funny that you mentioned something about cleaning your plate because I have vivid memories of being a kid, and I could not leave the dinner table until I finished all of my food. And I remember thinking, “I'm full. I don't want to eat anymore. I'm good.” And I had this conversation also with my students and we talked about intuitive eating, and I mentioned exactly what you said and I was like, “Yeah, I remember being little and people being like, ‘You have to finish your food.’”
And the other day I was eating dinner and I served myself a good portion, and I'm eating, and I got to a point where like I'm good. I don't want to finish. I don't need to finish. I don't want to feel extremely full. And I just stopped, and I had this flashback to, interesting, like my body is being intuitive right now and it's telling me, “Hey, you're good. You don't have to finish this. We feel really good right now.” I was content, I was satisfied, and I know if I would've finished it, I probably would've been like, “Ugh,” and just not feeling too great. So it was just really interesting to think allowing ourselves to really tap into our bodies and listen to ourselves and not follow these arbitrary rules that maybe we've always heard, you know?
Megan Gill: Oh, yes, absolutely. And the rules that then taught us to disconnect from our bodies. I think that the journey I'm on right now is like coming back home to myself and connecting and really, really feeling into that because same. I was taught the same thing. And then my mom would tell stories like, “Well, when I was a kid, I would shove the peas in my mouth and then go to the bathroom and then get rid of them.”
Tiffany Ragozzino: That is so funny.
Megan Gill: Oh, my gosh. So it's interesting also because I feel like we are really breaking the cycle, whereas our parents were kind of like, “Okay, well, we want to do it differently than our parents.” But they did very much uphold, I think, a lot of weird teaching us to not be connected to our realizing it.
I was listening to a podcast episode this past week, and it was kind of about intuitive eating in a sense, and connecting to your body and listening to your body. She was talking about the way that she works through her intuitive eating now is when she is eating, she remembers that feeling when she felt too full and felt sick, when you overdo it and you're like, “Oh, I don't feel good.” And she kinda lives in that and is like, “Yeah, I don't want to feel that.” And I really connected with that because, for me, a good marker has always been Thanksgiving, right? Obviously. And for ever and ever in a day, I overdid it, overdid it, overdid it. And as of more recently, I have been more and more connected to my body and just also very intuitively eating, which has been very, very cool and lovely. And I think that's it. That's the piece. I don't want to feel sick, what it is. I don’t want to feel unwell, and that then makes me feel bad in my body. I don't really need that. We want to try to feel good in our body as much as possible.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah. You know what's interesting about that? Because I've always been a very intuitive eater, very connected to my body. I feel like anytime I try to go against that, my body's like, “Don't you dare.” It gets mad at me. And I have a recent example.
So I did this three-month – so we were talking about Pilates earlier, and I'd been seeing so much content on women leaving weightlifting to go be Pilates girls, and all of a sudden now they're slimmed down and so snatched because they stopped weightlifting and lost all this cortisol and all this stuff. And I was like, “Let me look into this.”
So I decided to be a guinea pig, and I did a three-month Pilates experiment. I did a podcast episode on it. So if anybody wants to go hear that, it is on Season 6: Episode 11 on my Pretty Little Lifters podcast. I will send you the link. And yeah, it was very, very interesting. But after I finished this challenge and got my results and everything, it ended in December. So in January when we kicked off the new year, I was like, okay, I'm gonna get back into my strength training. I'm so excited to lift barbells, but I might want to – maybe I need to tighten up my diet a little bit, and I don't love counting calories or macros or anything, but I was like, you know, I've only tried it oncem and I think I lasted like a week or two, a week and a half maybe, and I was just over it. So I was like, no, I'm gonna really do it this time.
So I dedicate,d for sure, it was one month and then I was gonna do like a little bit longer than a month. And I did it. I was proud of myself for doing it, right? But it was very interesting because I also was doing DEXA scans to see if my body composition changed because this was all part of like an experiment, and I did not lose body fat. And it was almost like my body was mad at me. It's like, “Why are you feeding us all this food? What are you doing? This is too much!” And just the process of counting or anything, and I was like, whoa, I put in so much effort every week measuring food, doing this, cooking all my meals, dah, dah, dah, all of it, and nothing beneficial body-composition-wise happened, and I eat fairly well anyways. And so, I was just like, man, was that a waste? I guess I learned something, right? So then I was just like, you know what? We're gonna scrap that. And we're just gonna go back to me eating the way I usually do and just cooking more at home and being more intuitive about it. And so, I did that for the last month or so, and then I totally dropped 2% body fat, and I was like, “Excuse me?”
Megan Gill: I love this. I’m obsessed with this.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah! And so, I was like, whoa, our bodies are cool. Our bodies are so cool. And I know everyone's different, but for me personally, that is a stressful thing for me. So it's almost like add in a stressor, and my body's like, no, thank you. And then also it's just, like I said, I know my body, and for me, I was just eating a lot more food than my body was interested in. So it just didn't work for me.
Megan Gill: Yeah. Wow, that's so cool and such an important thing to hear. Sitting here as someone who has ditched, for me it was MyFitnessPal. It was never really macros and stuff like that, but it was still like a not-so-great triggering relationship with counting calories, that is so validating to hear.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yes! It was so validating.
Megan Gill: Right? You’re like, “Okay, well, was that a waste?” But like at least now you know that you can truly just be present with your body and in your life and with your food and your movement, and that that is what's more beneficial than cracking down and doing things that society says will “help you lose body fat” or whatever it may be, whatever the goal is. That is pretty freaking cool. That is a word.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, it was really cool. And the thing also is that, as somebody in the health and fitness industry, I understand what it takes to look a certain way, and sometimes I think when people are on social media and they see “body goals” or somebody that inspires them and they're like, “That physique,” and I'm like, “Do you know what they have to do for that? Like, but do you really know because they're not telling you exactly what they have to do. It's a lot of work, a lot of work.” And even on me as somebody who knows this stuff and is healthy and intuitive, if I wanted to change my body to how I used to look, you know, really lean or at a lower body fat percentage, it is a lot of work, and I just don't know if I'm interested in that, to be honest.
I was like, I don’t know if I'm there. It was just easier for me when I was in my twenties and thirties, and now knowing what I would have to do to achieve that, especially when you were already pretty lean and to go even leaner, it's a lot of work. And I don't think people realize what some of these people have to sacrifice or what they have to do, and it can be, you know, we're talking about life-long things and I'm like, “I can't do that lifelong. No! That's not fun!”
Megan Gill: Right, that’s not sustainable. Yeah, oh, for sure. And then also what comes into play also in this conversation, I think, is like genetics. If you see someone and you're like, “Body goals,” but my body is this, my calves ain't getting any smaller no matter what I do. I think that we need to bring that into the conversation as well, and that's something that I'm exploring for myself too.
Like, oh my gosh, I had an ex of mine who – I've always had a little belly. She's just always there. Genetically, my whole family has it. It's just what's going on. Even when I had a very unhealthy relationship to food and exercise and had a very low body weight for my 5’7” stature, I still had it. She was still there. She was still with me.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Wow. Okay.
Megan Gill: And not to out my ex or anything, but he was like, “You know you could get rid of that if you wanted?” He said that to me one time, and that just really irritated me because I’m like, sir, pardon me! Pardon, A, but B, at the same time, the way that my belly is on my body has always been this way on my body, and I don't want to know what I would have to do to make it go away. And, like you said, at this point in my life, I am not interested in making it go away. She's here to stay. She's with me. I love her now. I've radically accepted the fact that this is the body that I live in, and like this is the belly that I have, and she's mine, and she’s great, and I think that's so, so, so hard also though to get to that place. And granted it's not every day. Of course, of course, of course. I'm always working to accept my physical body.
Yeah, when you do look around at your friends or at social media or whatever it is, at the person, you're like, “Oh,” like if somebody has that body goals, I think we do just have to really remind ourselves like we are all so different.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, we are. Totally, and I'm glad you brought this up because, during
the pandemic, so this was like 2020, I developed SIBO, and I was having all these stomach issues. And so, I was working with a nutritionist and doctors, and one of the things that they were like, “Hey, you might want to try this special diet, and we’ve got to tame your symptoms a little bit.” And that word, right, a particular way of eating is very triggering for me. And I was instantly so angry because I was like, “I have to eat a certain way? What?” And it was the strictest thing I've ever done in my life, and I had to do it for three months. And I weigh the same as I did like right now when I started this. And within two weeks I lost ten pounds, which, on my frame, is a lot, and it was very noticeable.
But the thing that was very triggering was when I did lose that weight, it was like my “best body” in terms of I had all this muscle underneath, so I just looked ripped. I looked very lean, and I was getting so many compliments on my body. So it started messing with my head, and I was like, “Great. Does anybody know this is very unsustainable? I can't keep doing this. This is not what my body's supposed to look like. It's looking like this because I'm eating a very, very – I'm doing an elimination diet and we're seeing what foods I can tolerate or not.” And yeah, that was wild. That really messed with my head because I started thinking, “Oh, this is when I look better. Everyone's telling me this is my hot body,” right? And guess what? It went away as soon as I was off the diet because I had to eat normal again and exist, and I needed to go eat at restaurants because I'm human. And yeah, that was a very eye-opening time because when you get to a place where you kind of used to look, and it's very like acceptable, it can really mess with your head, you know?
Megan Gill: Oh my gosh, yes, for sure. Especially when the messaging around you is, “Oh my god, you look so good!” Compliment here, complement there. It's also like, whoa, why are we commenting on the way my body looks?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Yeah, it was weird. It was weird. And I think because I was also in a different headspace, it just felt very weird. But you were talking about like your stomach and you're like, “I've always had this,” and for my body type, you know, I've always had like a booty and you know, some legs. If I gain weight, that's where it goes, you know? So for me that was the first time my legs got thin, and I never really had that. So that was like, whoa, to get my legs to look like that, I have to eat like this? I was like, “No.”
Megan Gill: Not worth it.
Tiffany Ragozzino: I like thai food!
Megan Gill: Yes! Oh, my gosh. Yes, totally. That's so true. I keep coming back to this piece: sustainability. How are we gonna sustainably move in the world at a weight that our body is supposed to exist at? I did see a post on Instagram in the past couple days that was like, “If you have to do bad things to your body to get it to look a certain way, maybe your body's not supposed to look that way.”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Exactly, and that's funny you mentioned that, because I was thinking of doing a post like that too, because it is such an important thing, and goes back to the macros. If you have to count macros for months on end and forever or count calories or this or that, that's not what you're meant to look like, that's not how we exist. What happens if the scale's gone? What are you gonna do? You know? What if MyFitnessPal goes away? What's gonna happen, you know? And it's like that's not, you know, intuitive. It's a very controlling thing, you know?
Megan Gill: Yeah, absolutely. I was pretty vegan during the pandemic, eating a pretty vegan diet. I've been pescatarian for about 1ten years, give or take now, and within the past six months or so, my body was craving salami and Greek yogurt.
Tiffany Ragozzino: Oh, what a combo!
Megan Gill: Could you imagine together? No!
Tiffany Ragozzino: I love it. It's so funny!
Megan Gill: But it was such a cool experience to be able to be so in tune and so connected with my body now to be able to hear that be able to say, “Okay, I think I need to follow that. I think I need to listen to that,” and I did, and I have, and I've implemented both of those things into my diet. Very random. Why salami? Couldn't tell you. No idea.
Tiffany Ragozzino: I love salami.
Megan Gill: For some reason, that’s what I'm wanting, and it feels good as long as I don’t overdo it. It's such an interesting experience to have that and to be like, okay, let's do a test and follow that and see what happens and see what's going on. For me, it's changed my life and changed the way that I exist and how present I am in my life and with my food and with my body that I do want that for more people. “Wait, it doesn’t have to be like that, guys! It doesn't have to be that complicated. It’s actually a little bit easier over here.”
Tiffany Ragozzino: Totally. It is. It really is. And I think, for anybody listening, I think many people are disconnected from their bodies. With stress and technology and work and career and just the hustle of the world, right? But if you can make that a goal to get connected to your body a little bit every day, over the years you're gonna just feel different. You're gonna move differently in the world. You're gonna show up differently from yourself. You're gonna create different habits for yourself because you just can be connected, and I think that's the piece that's missing that connection. People can't connect to themselves.
A friend of mine recently posted something in her Instagram reels, and she was talking about how she tried like the Oura Ring tracker or whatever, and she was like, “Yeah, it wasn't for me. I don't need another wearable tech. I'm pretty intuitive.” And I was like, that's why I don't have one. I was like, I am so intuitive with my body. If I'm tired, I probably know why. If I'm hungry, I know. I need to give myself that space to check in and understand, “Oh, I didn't sleep well last night. Guess who's crabby and not feeling strong at the gym this morning? Me!” I understand, you know? So it's giving yourself that time and grace to learn how to connect with your body. And it might take a while for some people, right? And it is a weird concept because it seems very out there like, “How do you connect?” you know? And it's just slowing down, being more mindful, starting to move your body. People underestimate how much learning to move in your body can get you connected to your body, you know?
Megan Gill: Yeah. Oh, for sure, for sure. I think that's such an important message for people to hear. I absolutely love that and couldn't agree more.
This has been so, so, so great. But I have one more question for you before we wrap up. I'm curious to know what your favorite thing or things about your body is?
Tiffany Ragozzino: Ooh, my favorite things about my body. I feel like this is very fitting since I'm like a strength girlie and love that. But one of my favorite things of my body is I love feeling strong and capable. This weekend I went to go play with my nieces, and I'm lifting weights all the time, so picking them up overhead, like a strict picking them up, and we were playing this elevator game, and I was literally slo-moing them up, and I was like, “How cool that their auntie can just be like, woo, with these girls!” And I was like, “That's freaking cool!”
So honestly, I think that's my favorite thing about my body, that I can do things. In my classroom when I have to move a squat rack across to the other room, I can just do things. It’s empowering. I feel really confident. I feel really capable. So I think for me, my favorite thing is being able to do things that I need to do in my everyday life. I could be in Hawaii and go on a hike if I wanted to. I could go paddle boarding for a mile if I needed to. Just being able to show up and just exist in this body and do things without thinking, “Can I do this? Am I healthy enough or fit or strong enough?” I can just do the thing. It feels so cool.
Megan Gill: Oh, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing!
“ I think many people are disconnected from their bodies, with stress and technology and work and career and just the hustle of the world, right? But if you can make that a goal to get connected to your body a little bit every day, over the years you're gonna just feel different. You're gonna move differently in the world. You're gonna show up differently for yourself. You're gonna create different habits for yourself because you can be connected. And I think that's the piece that's missing: that connection.”
- Tiffany Ragozzino
Tiffany Ragozzino is a Southern California-raised Latina millennial, the founder of The Pretty Little Lifters, and CA Credentialed P.E. and Health educator. She created the PLL platform to provide the knowledge and tools she wished she had received in school. Recognizing the profound impact early education has on shaping lifelong wellness, empowering girls and women to reclaim their space and redefine their relationship with exercise and nutrition became her focus. Teaching girls and women to lift weights, without the weight of societal pressures to conform to unrealistic beauty standards, in order to help them build lifelong strength and confidence.
Learn more about Tiffany’s work on The Pretty Little Lifters site
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While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your health providers.
