Nov. 19, 2024

From Paralysis to Power: Kim's Journey of Strength and Resilience

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Join us on this inspiring episode of the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball as we chat with health coach Kim Rahir. Diagnosed with MS, Kim defied conventional medical advice and embarked on a journey that led her to become a weightlifting champion. Discover how she helps others rebuild muscle and regain strength, especially women in midlife. Learn about her unique perspective on health, her career shift from journalism to coaching, and her mission to empower women through strength training. Don't miss this powerful story of resilience and transformation!
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600

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00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:09.205
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome, um, to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. Um, if you believe you can achieve, cheat.

00:00:18.745 --> 00:00:38.162
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I and a few guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by health coach Kim right here. Kim, um, was diagnosed 10 years ago with Ms.

00:00:38.338 --> 00:01:00.893
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>But she chose to ignore her doctor's advice and do it a different way. Her, uh, doing it a different way led her to a, ah, weightlifting championship. And now she focuses on helping others and she focuses on reactivating and rebuilding muscle. So we're going to be talking to her about her journey and how she's helping people.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Kim, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Speaker B>Thanks for having me.

00:01:05.844 --> 00:01:09.025
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Speaker B>Yeah. So I'm a German. Um, I used to be a journalist. Led a happy journalist life. Loved my job. Had three small kids. My husband is a journalist too.

00:01:21.778 --> 00:02:57.824
> Speaker B>So we actually traveled the world. We moved every four years. And, um, I thought that everything was fine. I had a great job, I had my three kids. And then I fell ill from one day to the next with a very tricky autoimmune thing that's called a syndrome. Guillain Barre sent me to hospital where I was paralyzed. After three weeks, my legs were just not moving. It was paralyzed from the hip downward, which was a very traumatizing experience. And I think it sort of shaped my mind for the years after that. This happened when I was 45 and I, um, felt so powerless in the hospital that I, um, think the seed was planted then that I never wanted to give up my power again. Um, now this thing was a one off and I healed, um, got sort of like a new lease on life and was very grateful. Already saw things differently after this, different perspective. Just for example, being grateful for being able to walk. This is, and until this day, every step I take, I'm aware that this is a gift. Um, but it didn't end there. Two years after that, um, I felt my left hand going numb. And I knew that wasn't good. They checked me and, um, after another year when I had a second relapse like that, I was diagnosed with ms, multiple sclerosis, which is, um, a condition that you do not know where you're going. It's different for every single person. So it's super, super scary.

00:02:58.125 --> 00:03:36.080
> Speaker B>I only had my numb left hand, and it's actually numb to this day. Uh, so I could still walk and everything, but still those were dark moments because I thought this Is like, really a low blow after the first thing that happened to me, which was quite traumatizing. Also, my kids were small at the time. Uh, so I'm still not done with this. I thought, this is. Wow, this is heavy. And I learned to focus just on the. On the present day, uh, because when you look at the big picture in a situation like that, with a diagnosis like that, you get so scared, get so scared. So I.

00:03:36.233 --> 00:04:07.745
> Speaker B>It taught me to just think about today, spend the day with my kids, make the most of it, enjoy life. And today I'm actually grateful for this experience, which is. Maybe it sounds crazy. When I talk to my mom, she says, oh, it was such a horrible time, such a horrible thing. And then I tell her, you know, yeah, it was hard at the time, but today I'm grateful because it really changed my perspective. It changed my life, it changed the way I saw things.

00:04:08.395 --> 00:04:22.095
> Speaker B>And when the doctor said I should be careful with exercise, um, I thought this was a weird advice because he didn't say why, and he didn't say what he feared might happen to me.

00:04:22.629 --> 00:05:54.524
> Speaker B>Um, and when I talked to a nurse the day after, she said, no, exercise is great. You just go ahead because it makes you fatigue resistant. And I think I talked about the seed that was planted when I was in hospital. I had this desire to become physically strong. I wanted to be able to trust my body again. And I lifted heavy and heavier, and I got better and better. Uh, until seven years ago now, my neurologist said that I was in such great shape. I had had no relapse and nothing that I could actually stop my treatment. And that's when I realized that with my approach that I chose instinctively for myself, I was maybe onto, um, something and I could help other women who maybe felt like me, like I felt at the time. Like, you know, this is just darkness, and where am I going? What can I do? Could I. Could it be any worse? Um, that. Yes, there's always something you can do. And if you opt for this very simple, very simple thing of physical strength, you can, uh, make your life so much better, your quality of life so much better. And I think, um, having experienced this myself helped me to get this understanding, this empathy for where people are at when they feel so low and think they can't do anything and help them out of there and help them get stronger and improve their quality of life.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Tell us about your career as a journalist.

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> Speaker B>Yeah, so I started with a newswire, um, like a news agency in the US they have ap.

00:06:12.338 --> 00:06:46.545
> Speaker B>I was in Europe. And I worked for the French news agency, which is called AFP Agents France Press. And I worked for the German service because I'm a German. And it was super exciting. Was like the perfect job for me at the time. So we were treating news from all over the world for the German readers was fast paced. And still you had to be very, very thorough and diligent because, you know, everybody wants to trust the news agency. You cannot just throw out stuff. It has to be like, totally double checked, triple checked and, and good info.

00:06:47.004 --> 00:07:16.045
> Speaker B>And I loved it. And I married a journalist, a colleague, and we started traveling around the world. And I started working as a freelancer, which was great too, because I could go and find and choose my stories and I loved telling stories. We lived in the Arab world, for example. And uh, there it was so much easier for me as a woman, um, to talk to women and talk to them about how they feel, how they live, what they dream of.

00:07:16.875 --> 00:07:47.605
> Speaker B>And I really enjoyed that. Um, when I got ill, I was not a freelancer. I was employed, I was working shifts. It was pretty tough. Um, but I still wasn't disenchanted with journalism as I became later. I, uh, was still loving the work of finding stories, finding and treating information and making it accessible to everybody. That was always my mission.

00:07:47.959 --> 00:08:14.504
> Speaker B>Uh, you know, give people information so they can make good decisions in, you know, in life and in politics when they, when they vote, stuff like that. Um, and over time with technology, uh, everything has changed. In journalism. The information is not, it doesn't have the same purpose. It's not to make people responsible citizens.

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> Speaker B>It's, it's become a commodity.

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> Speaker B>Uh, you know, the more clickbaity, the more exciting, the more weird, the more scroll stopping, the better. And this hasn't really, uh, stopped at the news agency's doors. They are still probably the most serious, but there's, um, ah, a lot of things have changed and I was getting frustrated with that. And I think, you know, my, my illness and then my recovery, um, I think they were like a calling and told me that I needed to do something else. So seven years ago, when my doctor told me I could stop my treatment, I thought, yes, I'm onto something. I'm tired of journalism. I want to, I want to have an impact, a different impact. I want to improve, change people's lives. Um, and so I quit that career.

00:09:15.985 --> 00:09:21.924
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, why do you feel like building muscle for women is so crucial during midlife?

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> Speaker B>Yeah, that's something, that's my big mission. Because as, as women, we are not brought up to think that muscle is important for us. Right. We think we want to be pretty, uh, elegant, smart, educated, all kinds of things. But no one really tells us that we need muscle so much for our health and our longevity. Um, and when we reach 35, our bone density, our muscle mass, everything only deteriorates if we do not pay attention, if we do not counteract.

00:09:54.335 --> 00:10:29.052
> Speaker B>And m, that's something, um, that many women still don't know, are not quite aware of. And we know now, I mean, I experienced this through my personal story, and I realized I felt in my fibers, like, literally how much better my health was, also my mental health. Um, but by now we have so much science. We know that, like, muscle is actually the organ of longevity, and it improves your quality of life tremendously. You're physically strong.

00:10:29.229 --> 00:11:09.360
> Speaker B>And because women still have hesitations or do not have this sort of in their, uh, like ingrained in their, in their upbringing, in their education, I'm out here on a mission telling every woman, you need muscle and your life will be better. Your metabolic health will be better, your joint health will be better, your cardiovascular health will be better, and most of all, your mental health will be so much better. We have so much research now showing that all symptoms of mental health problem improve with strength training. So this is, uh, really the royal solution to so many problems.

00:11:09.552 --> 00:11:14.625
> Speaker B>And I love it also because it's simple. You don't even need a gym.

00:11:14.745 --> 00:11:37.615
> Speaker B>I work with my clients, but most of them, they just want to train in their homes. And it's totally possible, it's simple, it's kind of democratic because, um, you don't need equipment, you don't need to be the member of a fancy club. Um, basically you just need your body and, you know, make the decision that you, you want to get strong, and then you, you can do this.

00:11:39.754 --> 00:11:45.174
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So what advice would you give women who say that, you know, it's too late for them to start getting strong?

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> Speaker B>Yeah, it never is. And it's amazing, uh, what the human body can do actually. And already, I think in the 80s, there were studies already when the researchers went into retirement homes and they, uh, had like, strength training programs for people. Some of them were in their 90s and they got stronger with a bit of training. Um, and I know that we have this as humans. I think we tend to have a black or white attitude because it makes things easier to understand. When we just think black or white, all or nothing, right or wrong, um, when reality is so much more complex.

00:12:29.179 --> 00:12:54.599
> Speaker B>Um, and when it happens, not, I Hear this all the time. You're a woman, you're 55, and you realize, oh, my God, my knees have, uh, become dodgy. They hurt me. Think, okay, if I have dodgy knees, then I can't exercise. When you can, you can work around this same thing. You have maybe an achy shoulder, or it could be your wrists, your ankles.

00:12:54.767 --> 00:13:19.654
> Speaker B>As we age, of course, we have limitations in our body, but we can always work around that. And no matter where we are at, we can always do something. If we accept that things might not be perfect, but it's never too late. You can start any time, and the human body at any age actually will react to that stimulus and build muscle and become stronger.

00:13:22.195 --> 00:13:30.605
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, for someone who wanted to start strength training during their midlife, what advice would you give them on the best way to start?

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> Speaker B>What you want to do first, I think is have like, really an assessment of what your status is. Um, and there's a, there's a free assessment on my website that you can take to get a good idea of where you are at. Because you, everybody has their own history, and the older we are, the more history we have and the more individual and unique it is. So you would really want to know what is your actual physical strength right now? What's your mobility, what can you do?

00:14:05.794 --> 00:14:27.684
> Speaker B>And as soon as you have a very clear picture of what your status is, um, from an exercise point of view, you can then start doing the exercises that are possible for you. Um, still a bit challenging, but, you know, won't hurt you, won't injure you, won't, uh, overwhelm you, but won't be boring either.

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> Speaker B>And for most women, that starts with simple, um, body weight exercises where we start managing and lifting our body weight, even partially.

00:14:41.865 --> 00:15:43.801
> Speaker B>Sometimes, uh, we have to take a step further back and start with a gentle activation. Because when you haven't moved for a long time that the connection between your brain, your central nervous system and your muscles sort of falls asleep a little bit. Um, muscle contraction and, and strength actually, and, and exertion of strength is actually a, um, matter of the quality of the signal that goes from the nervous system to the muscle. So sometimes we have to wake that up, um, rekindle that, sort of put the muscle muscles online again before we start with the actual strength training. Um, but it works because it works well because the human body is such a, such a miracle. And when you ask it to do things, it will start preparing and getting stronger to be able to do those things. If you do not, uh, challenge the Body, it's ruthless. It will really switch the muscles off. It will let them atrophy.

00:15:43.873 --> 00:16:01.673
> Speaker B>It will think, okay, we're not needing this part of the body, so we're not going to give it any resources. I think we don't quite always understand that. Even in our brain and body, it's all about allocation of resources.

00:16:01.808 --> 00:16:10.164
> Speaker B>And we have to make sure that our muscles demand those resources, um, by stimulating and training them.

00:16:12.575 --> 00:16:21.634
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, give some nutritional tips for those who want to start the, uh, strength training in midlife. You know, like, what kind of things should they eat?

00:16:21.975 --> 00:16:24.549
> Speaker B>Yeah, it's actually quite simple.

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> Speaker B>Um, that doesn't mean that it's super easy. But you want to have protein at every meal for two reasons. Protein is the one. Macronutrient that will help you build muscle, that will help you repair tissues, that will help you, uh, produce immune bodies. Also, um, it's a very, very constructive macronutrient that will really help you, uh, with repair, with maintenance of your bodily tissues. Um, and you have to have it at every meal because the body cannot store protein.

00:16:59.496 --> 00:17:19.795
> Speaker B>It gets broken down and built up again all the time, like 24 7. The body can store fat very well, we know that, unfortunately. And it can stor carbohydrates and sugar, uh, like in the muscles and in the liver. So we can carry some, some stocks of that around with us, but we cannot store protein.

00:17:19.875 --> 00:17:39.295
> Speaker B>So that's something that we want to have at every meal. If you make that your, like, your baseline for your meal, then you want to load up on vegetables and have some fruit to make sure you get all the nutrients and enzymes and micronutrients and phytonutrients and what have you that your body needs to function.

00:17:39.714 --> 00:17:57.855
> Speaker B>And that's it for the rest. If you're still hungry, you know, you have whatever you enjoy, whatever you love. If you have, like, your basic nourishment of protein and veggies and fruit, you're going to be thriving, very healthy, and you're going to build muscle and strengthen and feel really good about yourself.

00:18:00.795 --> 00:18:06.339
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to be aware of. Huh?

00:18:07.795 --> 00:19:10.295
> Speaker B>Well, I am, um, training myself. I've become, you know, after studying lifting, I was lifting for a while. Then I became a weightlifter, which is something different still. You know, it's like I do Olympic weightlifting, um, where there's only two movements, but they are explosive and very technical. So it's a lot of fun, very challenging. So I am working and Training for a new European Championship next year. It's in May and believe it or not, the preparation starts now. Um, and you know, that's like my personal project. And I'm also working on a book to help menopausal women thrive again, reclaim their youthful self, reclaim their, their body, which often they feel is letting them down and do that and like very simple steps. But that's a little bit out. I'm just starting to write this.

00:19:12.634 --> 00:19:15.507
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

00:19:15.570 --> 00:19:17.335
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Throw out your contact info.

00:19:18.555 --> 00:19:51.744
> Speaker B>Yeah, the easiest thing is to go to kimrahear.com um, this is my website. You can take the assessment there to find uh, out what your situation is. And when you fill that in, I'll give you some uh, tips and next steps that you can take to start going. Because I know it can be very overwhelming and we want to cut it down to small steps, um, that you start taking. So when you take that assessment, that's on my website, kimraheer.com um, and with my name Kimra here, you can follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

00:19:52.029 --> 00:19:59.285
> Speaker B>Um, I share a lot of tips, a lot of um, info, and also a little bit about my weightlifting pictures.

00:20:01.904 --> 00:20:09.565
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

00:20:10.664 --> 00:20:37.944
> Speaker B>Well, there's one thought that I think is. It's sort of. I'm thinking more, more about this because um, it simplifies things and it's a bit counter. It goes a bit against um, like what people are sort of, most people are saying now nowadays we have this idea that if we find the right mindset, um, then we can achieve anything.

00:20:38.765 --> 00:20:57.815
> Speaker B>So it's this mind over matter approach where if we can only sort of get our m. Mind in the right place, if we can only get the right setup in our mind and then we will be able to do all these things that we know will make us healthier and feel better about ourselves.

00:20:58.434 --> 00:21:37.313
> Speaker B>And I am thinking more and more that it's actually the other way around, that it's matter over mind in the way where we start by doing the actions, by just moving a little bit more, walking a little bit more, eating maybe one more vegetable in a day, um, that if we keep doing those actions, we will become the person that does those actions. So this activity, this physical doing will actually help then shape the mindset that we are looking for.

00:21:37.449 --> 00:21:45.924
> Speaker B>So I think matter of a mind is something that you want to consider when you're looking for ways to improve your quality of life and your health.

00:21:48.795 --> 00:22:01.654
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>All right, ladies and gentlemen, Kimrah.com please be sure to check, uh, out her website and everything that she's up to. Follow Rate Review Share this information to as many people as possible.

00:22:01.994 --> 00:22:29.575
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>If you know somebody who needs to do some strength training midlife, you know, send this episode to them. Jump on your favorite podcast app, Give us a review. Follow us Share the Show if you have any guest or suggestion topics, Curtis Jackson 1978@att.net is the place to send them. Thank you for listening, Kim. Thank you for all that you do. Listeners, thank you for supporting the show. And Kim, thank you for joining us.

00:22:30.075 --> 00:22:31.494
> Speaker B>Thanks for having me.

00:22:32.315 --> 00:22:40.338
> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>until next time, stay focused on Living the Dream. Dream.