Conversations on Healing

Welcome to the Conversations on Healing Podcast, where host Shay Beider speaks with renowned healthcare leaders, practitioners, and thought leaders to explore the world of wellness, the incredible powers of self-care, and what it truly means to heal today. Join us on this journey to become more whole healed and connected.

Shay Beider: Thank you for joining us today. This is The Conversations on Healing Podcast, and I am the host, Shay Beider. Our guest today is Dr. Olivia Affuso, the Director of Strategic Leadership Initiatives for the Council on Black Health, and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. Dr. Affuso obtained her PhD in Nutrition Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences. She was a tenured associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research has focused on the prevention of obesity and chronic disease through physical activity. Outside of work, Dr. Affuso is an ultra runner and coach, and the Chief Wellness Officer of the Black Magic Trail, sisters of Virtual Social Support group that promotes women’s wellness through consistent daily movement. In today’s episode, Olivia shares her impact and focus to support healthy black communities and develop wellness programs for girls and women. She’s laying the foundation for healthy living in her own endeavors, completing ultra marathons, spending time every day out in nature, and committing to her own health and happiness practices. I’m excited for you to hear her story and learn about her current projects. She’s really an inspiration. You know, we touch on the ways that there’s structural issues, but bottom line, when it comes down to it, what are some of the fundamentals that we all can put in place to help us to live happier, healthier lives? So let’s get the conversation started.

Olivia, it’s lovely to have you on the Conversations on Healing podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. Well, I wanna kind of dive into the deep end because, you know, in learning a little bit about your story, one of the things that I thought was so beautiful is that this past year you have decided to just sort of revolutionize your life and really, it seems to me focus on what would support you in having optimal health and happiness. And that was such a leap. It feels like that you took that I want you to share that story a little bit with our listeners and what you’re learning as you’ve made this kind of radical change in your personal life.

Dr. Olivia Affuso: Yeah. So last year, April 2022, I decided that I was going to leave academia. I mean, that is a major, major thing when my entire life has been oriented towards becoming a researcher. So you can only imagine how scary it was to take the leap. We’ve often heard the saying that, if you take the leap, the net will appear, but part of that is like, is it really gonna happen? So I took the leap, and almost immediately, opportunities started to pop up everywhere. I was so excited and it was kind of a validation that I could do this. So here I am.

And I know also you just got back from a big race that you were involved in. If I have the name right, it was called The Fat Ass 50K; I think that’s what you told me. So I wanted you to share a little bit about that: what inspired you to do that race, and how it went for you.

So I started doing ultra marathons in 2011 after reading some books about ultra endurance athletes. And so eventually I decided, you know what? I wanna do one of these 50 kilometer races in all 50 states, and I’ve set out to do that so far. I had completed 22 different states in places like California, Oregon, Wyoming. I’d done lots of races, but there’s another opportunity called the Fat Ass Format, which means that it’s not a regular race, it’s self-supported. You choose your own course and you go out and do it. Of course, you capture the information using some kind of, you know, wearable device so that you actually have a record that you did do it. So if anyone ever asks you yes, you check the box. And so I decided to do Maine. Part of it was that one of my friends seven years ago started a section hiking the Appalachian Trail, and now she was gonna finish and she said, would you come and, you know, do that part of the trail with me?

And I said, wait a minute. It could be two for one. I could do the 50K, the Fat Ass 50K, totally self-supported, and I could meet you on the trail. And then we could hike up to the end of the, at Mount Kaden and we could summit it together. And so that’s what I did. I basically got up on a Saturday morning and ran into the 100 Mile Wilderness in Maine, ran into my friend on trail, which was crazy, because I didn’t realize where, where she would be like, we had a plan to meet at mile 16. It turns out as I was around the corner there, she was at mile 12. And so I went a little further, then turned around and started running back the other way. Luckily she waited for me. And so we met at the top of the ledges and we eventually made our way back to camp. That whole feat, it was insane. The trail was not super runnable. It was very foggy because it had been raining for like the last 10 days in a row. So I ran as fast as the trail would allow me to run, but at the end of the day, at the end of 12 hours, I had completed my Fat Ass 50K.

Well, that’s quite an accomplishment, and I think it’s inspiring for our listeners to hear about that. I’m also just thinking about how you mentioned at the start of our conversation about being in academia, letting that go – which is a big deal as a tenured professor. And you had been serving in a school, a department of public health, working your whole career with health, right? With things like exercise and food and nutrition and how this impacts us and obesity and all of the things that come along with what we are, how we move. I’m so curious because it feels to me like you’re in this next stage where you’re taking your own personal health to the next level. And I’m very curious about the foundation of all the research that you had done, all of the academic work that you had done in the field of public health, how you think that may have in a way readied you for this point in time where you are making these personal transformations, to kind of take it to the next level?

Yeah, so I think one of the big things for me was that I knew the research as an epidemiologist. I knew all of the things that would support overall health. So, you know, optimal sleep, sufficient physical activity, healthy eating patterns, like I knew all of those things. I heard about work-life balance, but working in a very research intensive academic environment, I often found that some of those things were falling out of balance. And eventually, in all honesty, I was starting to get burnt out. And so at that point I made a decision of yes: so how can I exchange some things at work? But eventually I knew it was time for me to jump ship, so to speak, and be able to walk the talk a little more intentionally and think about the things that I was most passionate about, which is health and wellness and how we can help other individuals find community around supporting their healthy behaviors, even if that means leaving a prestigious career.

Right. Exactly.

I jumped.

You jumped, you jumped, you took that leap, and it’s exciting to see now what you’re choosing to do now that you have taken that leap. So tell our listeners a little bit about how you are redesigning your work and how you are choosing to spend your time in supporting others and also in having a higher quality of life.

Yeah. So basically, I’ve rearranged my life into three buckets. One is I am working as a director of strategic leadership initiatives for the Council on Black Health. And the council is all about reimagining the health of the black community. In that role, I have the opportunity to train the next generation of scholars and advocates to really help promote healthy behaviors all the way around. But not only that, but also creating healthier environments that make it easy for people to engage in healthy behaviors. So that’s a big part of what we do. My other buckets include professional speaking, and also I’m working on doing some research around helping women and girls in particular to live active balanced lives. So a part of that is I maintain an online community and, you know, we are a support group for each other to provide examples for walking the talk and also support and accountability.

Right. And I know those support groups have been very popular. I think at times you’ve had several hundred people that are participating. I’m curious about why you feel that the support group format is really beneficial for girls and women to get them making healthier choices.

Well, of course selfishly, I started it to gain more support for myself. But, you know, I also saw it as an opportunity to sort of change the narrative around what women can do for themselves. So typically women are socialized to put themselves last, which means that if you don’t have really good boundaries around the self-care and wellness practices then there’s potential for burnout. And so I created this space – it’s a Facebook group. There are about 400 women, and we come together and we agree on some activity to do each month, whether it’s spending 10 minutes outside, going for a walk, or what I find is really common is women wanting recipes of how to make quick healthy meals. And so each month we’ll choose something different to do and really focus on that and be supportive of each other.

Right. And I know one of the practices that you like to inspire women to do is just to move a little bit each day. And as I recall you’ve made personal commitments at various times to, you know, to run for a certain amount every day, no matter what, like no matter rain or shine. So tell our listeners, I think that’s kind of cool, your personal practice.

Yeah. Several years ago I’d been running with groups of people and, and there were a couple of guys who were street runners, people who run every single day. And I just thought it was stupid. I was like, why would anyone wanna do this? And then at the end of 2018, like the last hundred days of the year, I said, you know what, I’m gonna try this. I can run one mile a day every day for the next hundred days. I can do that. It’s not too hard, like 10 or 15 minutes, you know, at the most. And I could do this, so we’ll just see what happens. So a hundred days went by and then I didn’t have a reason to quit.
So it was like, okay, well I guess I’ll just keep going, until I don’t wanna do it anymore! Now I am 1,742 days of running every single day. And I don’t know that I will quit anytime soon, unless maybe if I go climb Mount Kilimanjaro, because it’d be really hard to maintain a streak while running up the side of the mountain at high altitude. But I use that as an example of how easy it is to develop a habit that doesn’t require a whole lot of effort, but the benefits are major. So if I’m feeling like I’m having writer’s block, I’m feeling a bit stressed out, I go out for my one mile run at the minimum, and I come back and I feel refreshed. And so I use that as a kind of a platform to encourage women that you don’t have to kill yourself. You can go out and do a little something consistently, and you will be able to see the benefits from that.

That’s great. Those daily habits are so important. So it’s wonderful that you recognize that and personally practice it. Another aspect of this conversation that I wanted to have with you, Olivia, is I know, with your background in public health, with some of the work you’re doing currently at the Council on Black Health, you recognize that the health of individuals is deeply influenced by the way systems are designed. You know, and we see, right? We have had a Supreme Court decision recently that has deeply impacted the way that universities will be able to accept students on what basis. and will race be able to be taken into consideration. And the decision now is no. And so the way that systems impact health, and even in your story around, you know, being in the Department of Public Health, but noticing that most departments of public health themselves are not designed systemically to really address underlying issues that support the health of the individuals in the department. And so I wanna talk a little bit about some of your views and take on the way that we can improve at a systems level or at least interact or interface with some of the systemic challenges that we face for health. Love to hear your thoughts on that.

Yeah. So I’m deeply disturbed by some of the policies that are being put into place around equity and diversity. And I think it’s a part of a bigger issue to think about how institutions function and what are going to be the consequences of these changes in policies. Therefore, I think that it’s going to be really important for individuals embedded within organizations to challenge the impact of some of these new policies. If we’re thinking about how these policies will impact diversity, even though we know that diversity is good for organizations, it brings different views and ideas and hopefully things that are moving universities forward in a positive way that, we will start to get some pushback so that we can create those healthy work environments that positively influence all of the constituents of the organizations. So I’m really sad to see some of these things are happening, but I’m hopeful that the next generation of scholars and advocates will push for policies that will give them opportunities to thrive in those academic environments.

Right? Absolutely. When you and I were speaking previously, Olivia, you said something to me that really stayed with me. You shared that you want individuals in the Black community to understand that there is nothing wrong with Black people. And when you said that, it went kind of right into my gut, and I would like for you to speak more about this message and what that means to you when you say that.

So that was not something that I came up with. I heard someone at the council make reference to even another person making that statement, and it too hit me in the gut and really resonated with me because I’ve been in public health work for more than 30 years. And a lot of the focus, especially in the beginning, was on individual behaviors. We need you to fix this and that, we need to eat better, exercise more. We need you to get enough sleep, go to the doctor, take your medicine, keep your blood pressure down. Just all of these things that we were putting on in individuals, you know, at this sort of personal responsibility. But as time went on, we really started to realize that there are systems in place that don’t make it easy for individuals to eat healthy, to be active.

So what is being sold in the grocery stores? What’s being sold in restaurants? What kinds of restaurants are located in your neighborhoods? Are there sidewalks? Are there traffic barriers to keep people from driving so crazy and potentially hitting pedestrians? What about loose dogs running around when you’re trying to walk and things are chasing after you? So we started to understand that those environments were really important, so important that it made us take a deeper look at how individuals interact with their environments and say, you know what? There’s not anything really wrong with the people. It’s the situation in which people find themselves. So there’s been research that shows when you create more green space, then you have more people come out and engage in the green space. When you know better food options are available, people will take advantage of the better food options. So, we know it’s not all the people. There are some societal norms and some cultural norms that, you know, people may want to eat hot dogs and hamburgers on the 4th of July, but that’s not every day. And we know that we can shift people’s behaviors by shifting environments

Right? Yeah. Those, those structural changes. And that shift, it’s not that there isn’t personal responsibility. I know that none of us would say that there isn’t in terms of health, but my goodness, for a long time we were ignoring a lot of the social responsibility, the structural inequities, the dynamics that were deeply influencing people’s health behaviors that really were not in their control. And so, I think it’s very important in the field of public health that we are starting to recognize that and to look at both individual, social, systemic responsibility. Looking at all of those pieces is really key.

Absolutely.

And I’m also curious because you did a number of years of obesity, health disparities research, when you look at that issue, at obesity: there’s a lot of ways that we’ve approached looking at obesity, right? Including personal responsibility, just eat less and exercise more. And a lot of that doesn’t really work that well, as it turns out. And so I’m curious about some of the key takeaways that you’ve learned personally from a career that has had a lot of research in that specific area of obesity.

Yeah, so obesity is a very complex issue. And, you know, I worked on lots of obesity interventions, like, you know, well, getting people to weigh themselves every day and, you know, eat less carbohydrates and you know, do more exercise. We looked at a lot of those things. And as a feel of obesity intervention we have found 101 different ways to get people to lose weight. What we haven’t found is ways for people to maintain weight loss. And so there are actually some studies now that have been following people long term and looking at different groups of people and saying, okay, well what’s really working? And working to maintain long-term weight loss is really difficult. So from the exercise standpoint, it requires a lot of exercise up to 90 minutes a day of physical activity to maintain weight loss. For many people, it also requires extreme caloric restriction. And then there are all the other things that go into that. So if a person has Type Two Diabetes, you know, one of the things that we might do for them is give them insulin. Insulin is a fat storing hormone, so now you have to battle, you know, kind of this feedback loop. So, you know, there are more there’s more research that’s still ongoing to try to figure out, like, you know, is there going to be a need for more personalized approaches for weight loss maintenance? And what role may medications play into that process of maintaining a manageable healthy weight? It’s really, really a hard area.

Yeah. You know, I’ll never forget, I was at a conference and I heard the physician who brought forward the whole concept around ACEs or adverse childhood experiences, and he discussed how he’d been working in the field for many years and he started talking about these patients and he shared some stories one of whom was a woman who had just had like chronic challenges with her weight. And it seemed like no matter what they discussed or did, that just wasn’t changing until he got to really the underlying issue, which for her was based in trauma. It was a way to protect her from a trauma story that had been unresolved and was still very much like being held in her body. And it wasn’t until that trauma story was directly addressed that she was able to start to heal and then to make some changes in the way that she was eating and living.

And all of it did ultimately lead to her being able to lose some weight and to become healthier in her body and to feel better in her body. But, you know, he said for all these years, I’d been missing this big piece that it’s not just about the food or the exercise. Like there was this whole other element that I wasn’t aware enough of. And so, you know, I think that’s a, to me that was such a powerful story about sometimes we get so simplistic in our thinking when there’s a lot more complexity to why people make certain choices that in many cases are actually self-protective, even though on another level it can look like it’s self-harming. But, and, in her case, it actually felt like this was protective for her.

Yeah. I think one of the things that you know, we have a culture in the United States of thinness and it varies across race ethnic groups, like what is an acceptable body size and body type but I think that there is a lot of focus on thinness that’s not really about health. And so there is, you know, research that shows us that you don’t have to be extremely thin to be healthy. And in many cases being extremely thin is not helpful at all. And so I think we really need to shift the narrative around weight, and particularly for women, because weight is used as a weapon. You know, we know that among some groups of women, their salaries are lower, the higher their body weight goes. And that’s unfortunate. And in many cases that can lead to unhealthy behaviors. And on the other end there’s also stigma around people having a larger body size. So lots of assumptions are made, oh, well this person is heavy. And so it also means that they’re unwell and that is not always true. There are individuals who have a higher body weight, their blood pressure is normal, their blood sugar is normal, they are physically active, they eat a relatively healthy diet, and these people are not sick. And nor do they need to be stigmatized for their body type. Like we just need overall greater body acceptance.

Isn’t that the truth, we do.

Exactly.

Yes. And diversity, like you’re saying, it’s not just this silly, thin thing that we’ve constructed largely in the media. It’s like, that’s ridiculous. That is not representative of health as you’re indicating, like you can have all different shapes and sizes and be beautifully healthy, right? So that’s extremely limiting. And as you said, thinness can also be very unhealthy. So that’s not, that’s not the single thing we wanna be looking at by any means.

Yeah. So it, I really think that, you know, clinicians should be a bit more careful in, you know, immediately when a patient comes in to, you know, really focus on the weight. Oh, you have to lose weight. Like figure out what’s going on with the whole person and, and really look at, you know, what things might need to be addressed outside of weight.

Well, I wanna pivot just a little, Olivia, because I know you’re currently working on a memoir, and I wanna give you a chance to talk a little bit about that, what’s inspired it. So share more about your memoir and what you’re choosing to write about at this time.

Yeah, so you know, as I was thinking about sort of shifting my life away from the academy and reclaiming some of my wellness, I started to reflect back on my time in nature and the title, or at least the working title I have so far, is, “ But Did You Die?”. And it’s really about a burnt out professor who is healing herself through spending time in nature. So since 2017, I have been engaging in a number of adventures primarily in nature. And I have experienced an expansion, a healing around reconnecting to nature and also having fun while I’m doing it. So that’s kinda kind of how it started.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know you have something in the memoir about this idea of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. So tell our listeners about what that story means to you.

Yeah, so when I was thinking about how am I going to start this book and to try to introduce people to who I am outside. People might Google me and find things about my academic work but not who I am as a person. And so I think people might see me as this person who was absolutely fearless. Well, there was a time in my life where I was absolutely afraid of flying, therefore there was no way I would ever jump out of a perfectly good airplane until one of my friends said, “Hey, when are you gonna jump? When are we gonna jump? When are we gonna jump?”. And one day I guess he caught me at a weak moment and he says, well, when are we gonna jump? And I said, tomorrow. And he said, oh, hold on, let me call my friends to see if we can jump in the morning.

I said, okay. And we drove over to Georgia and we went to the place and I signed the thing a thousand times. I could die doing this activity and my family will not sue. And so over and over and over and finally the pilot who’s going, because I’m gonna do a tandem jump the pilot says, “Hey Olivia, what are we doing today?” And I said, “Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane”. And he said, “Well, actually the plane is not all that good, so you should definitely jump”. And so, I mean, I was all in. I never felt a moment of fear about backing out. You know, we’re walking out to the tarmac, we’re all suited up. I get on the plane, I turn around, you know, like I’m doing, you know, peace symbols and I’m all in. And so I’m the first one in the plane, therefore I’m the last one out of the plane.

And the pilot says to me, he says, “Hey, do you wanna do a backflip?” And I said, “Absolutely”. And so we back flip out of the plane and we free fall for about a thousand feet. And then he pulls the cord and yanks this back up in the air and then it’s absolutely peaceful. It was the most amazing experience. And just having that experience, it made me feel like I was absolutely alive. And that’s where the title of the book comes from, “But Did You Die?”, which is really about the fact that we all will eventually die, but did you live in the time that you have? So I’m trying to spend some time living.

Good for you. Spend some time living. Well, we always like to get to a point in the conversation where I get to ask our guests about, you know, their own healing experience and understanding of what it means to heal. So I wanna ask you, when you think about your own life story and what you’ve learned about what it means to heal, what comes to mind for you?

I think the major thing that comes to mind to me is just the healing properties of nature. I think it allows me to be extremely present. And I noticed that while I was hiking on the 18 through the 100 Mile Wilderness. So when you’re on the Appalachian Trail, there are some white places that kind of give you direction, but they’re not like every foot. So you have to be aware of where you are and pay attention to the signs that will lead you to where you wanna go on the path. And it was amazing to become really aware. And in that moment it was almost like a meditation that I could tell by the like scuff marks on the rocks that I should go a little bit to the left or that there were some, you know, trees kind of leaning in a certain direction and I should go to the right.
And it was there. And it was in that being very present that I felt the most calm and most relaxed, even though I had no idea where exactly the next step would take me. I was not in fear. So imagine a 50 plus year old, black woman on the Appalachian Trail walking through the 100 Mile Wilderness all by herself and it’s raining and like I’m completely at ease. Completely at ease. And so when I spend time in nature, I know that it’s my healing space. I feel it. I even remember it as a kid. I remember feeling comfortable and focused and joyful. So I don’t know, I try not to preach about things, but getting back to nature I think is just such a healing opportunity for anybody who would take advantage of that.

Absolutely. What a beautiful story. When, when you take that in and you think about how you would personally define or describe what healing is, how would you define or describe it?

I think that I would describe that whole healing process as a way to plug into one’s innate joy. You know, happiness is kind of this fleeting thing, but there’s so much joy in nature, whether it’s the flowers or ferns or the trees or the sound of the rain. There’s just this, a certain joy in that. And I think that as more of us can get back to nature, that we can start to, you know, have more people experience that healing by spending time in nature.

Yeah, so true. I love it. I’m out in nature every day myself cuz it is a medicine for me too. So I’m right there with you on this one. Well as you move into this next chapter of your life, you mentioned in our conversation kind of the three buckets of how you’re organizing your life, your priorities. Where do you see yourself next, you know, I don’t know for some reason I wanna, I wanna take a broader look with you and say, okay, you know, you’ve lived 50ish years on this planet, like what’s the next 50 years? What are some of your highest aspirations and goals for your life?

I think, and, and I’ve tried to think about this more, especially when I’m wandering through the woods, I think about, what is the rest of my life going to be like? And I just see myself spending more and more time in nature and taking other people along with me because I can just see the positive benefits. You know, people don’t really have to do anything except just go and be in nature. And so, I don’t know, maybe if I had like a dream job, dream activity, I would just take, you know, plan trips and, and take women into the woods, whether it was, you know, a little glamping. Because I know some people don’t wanna sleep on the ground or just hike through the woods. It’s just so amazing. And I wish that for all women that they have the opportunity and the feelings of safety to spend time in nature. So never know. We’ll see. We will see where Olivia goes with this.

That’s great. I love it. I love it. We sometimes ask our guests kind of a fun question, so I’ll put this fun question to you, Olivia. Which is, if you could have lunch with anyone past or present, who would it be and what would you want to find out or discuss?

Wow. So I’m definitely thinking of someone in nature who’s spent time in nature. And I would probably say, you know, there are a lot of people who’ve spent some time in nature who’ve written about it and talked about it. But there’s one person who has a connection to nature that I don’t think a whole lot of people recognize, and that is the author Alice Walker and she was the one that wrote “The Color Purple”. And so, you know, I think more people need to know about that side of her. And I would just love to talk to her about what she was thinking and where she thinks that women could go with spending more time in nature.

That’s great. That would be a joyful conversation. Well, I wanna give you an opportunity if there’s, you know, this is a conversation on healing. If there’s anything else that you wanna share about healing or what you’ve come to understand what it means to heal. I just wanna give you a chance to share any party wisdom or thoughts.

So I think if I could leave the audience with one thing, it is to be more flexible in our thinking about healing. You know, oftentimes egos get involved with doing yoga practice every single day. I don’t know, I’m trying to think of something else that people are commonly doing today. Even doing things like high intensity interval training or being vegan. I think that we could be a little more open with that and a little more flexible. Yes, I may do this thing but I do some other things and I’m not better than the next person because I’m able to do this or something else. And so, you know, being a little bit less rigid around our practices and just being with those practices, less judging and more being

That’s nice. More being with those practices. That’s a nice way to say it. Yeah. Well I want to thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with me. I think it’ll inspire in particular a lot of women and girls who want to find their own relationship with how they stay healthy and how they heal, and perhaps they’ll feel inspired to get out there and connect with nature more frequently. Something we should be teaching more in schools of public health, right?

So I can see this future vision of you out there in the world leading all sorts of women on these incredible nature hikes and who knows, like backpacking trips and goodness knows, and there’s all sorts of opportunities that could unfold. So thank you for the work that you’re doing, the inspiration that you’re providing, and the commitment that you’re making to your own health and happiness, Olivia.

Thanks for having me.

Conclusion We hope you enjoyed this episode of The Conversations on Healing Podcast. If you haven’t yet, please go to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast platform and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. It helps so you won’t miss an episode. See you next time.