Life-Changing Challengers
Dive into the heart of transformation with "Life-Changing Challengers," a podcast that inspires listeners to turn their challenges into opportunities for growth. Hosted by Brad Minus, a seasoned endurance coach with over 13 years of experience, this show brings you compelling stories of resilience, ambition, and personal triumph.
Brad and his guests share their journeys of overcoming obstacles through endurance sports, personal development, and pursuing passions. From completing Ironman triathlons to conquering personal and professional hurdles, "Life-Changing Challengers" is your guide to breaking barriers and achieving your dreams.
Whether you're looking to incinerate your limits, find inspiration to chase your big passion or enjoy motivational stories of people who've transformed their lives, this podcast is for you. Join us to explore how embracing challenges can lead to a happier, more fulfilled life.
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Life-Changing Challengers
Discovering Strength: Kim Rahir's Journey from Journalism to European Weightlifting Champion
What if you could transform your life through the power of resilience and strength training?
In this episode of 'Life Changing Challengers,' host Brad Minus interviews Kim Rahir, a former journalist turned house coach and champion weightlifter. Kim, who grew up in Bremen, Germany, shares her early sports enthusiasm, academic excellence, and the challenges of being smart but not very tall.
She also talks about her diverse career, living in various countries, and her passion for weightlifting, which began at age 55.
Kim details her diagnosis with MS, her determination to become strong, and her impressive victory at the European Masters Weightlifting Championship. She emphasizes the importance of exercise, particularly strength training, for physical and mental health.
Kim also discusses her transition to coaching, helping women over 40 build muscle and improve their health. The episode highlights her resilience, dedication, and approach to life and fitness.
Contact Kim:
Instagram: @kim.rahir
Facebook: @kim.rahir
LinkedIn: @kim-rahir
KimRahir.com
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Contact Brad @ Life Changing Challengers
Instagram: @bradaminus
Facebook: @bradaminus
X(Twitter): @bradaminus
YouTube: @lifechangingchallengers
LifeChangingChallengers.com
And welcome back to another episode of Life Changing Challengers. Again, I'm your host, brad Minus, and I am extremely lucky. You have no idea how lucky I am to have Kim Rahir with us and she is in Spain, so this is an incredible honor for me, definitely. So anyway, kim, how are you doing today?
Kim Rahir:I'm great. In Spain it's very hot these days, so after 2 pm you try not to move and stay inside.
Brad Minus:Well, I live in Tampa Florida, so I hear you. So Kim is a house coach and she's also a champion weightlifter and we're going to get into that real quick. But first, as I ask all my guests, kim, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood, where you grew up, the complement of your family, and what was it like to be Kim as a kid?
Kim Rahir:Yeah, so I'm a northern German. I'm actually very proud of coming from the north. My grandfather was a fisherman, my great-grandfather was a fisherman. I was born and grew up in Bremen, which is not like a sea town but still very close to the sea. Bremen's trade tradition, everything, it all has this maritime context. I have an older brother and I grew up in a suburb of Bremen and I loved to play sports. I was actually a gymnast, became a gymnast when I was eight.
Kim Rahir:For a few years I was very smart in school, which turned out to become at some point a little bit disturbing because I was always told to shut up and I also thought of myself at the time because of the feedback that I was getting that I was quite impertinent and cheeky because, well, apparently I didn't shut my mouth, or maybe not enough, I don't know, but I felt okay with that, like as a child it was still okay.
Kim Rahir:As I became a teenager turned out that I was very smart but I was not very tall. I mean, now I live in Spain and most women are shorter than me, but I grew up in Germany where everybody was tall and at some point I even played volleyball and I was like the shortest in the group and people made fun of me and so I grew up thinking that I was smart but short and fit. But I never looked my age, which at some point you come back with a vengeance where you don't look your age. But at the time it was a bit stressful and we used to my family, we used to drive north on the weekends, take a sailboat and go out on the sea, so that's like a theme in my life.
Brad Minus:Nice, can I? Germany has a reputation for food. Not necessarily is it a spicy, not necessarily is it bland. It's got a very. What type of foods did you end up eating growing up?
Kim Rahir:Well, this is a good question. My dad, when I think it was at the beginning of the 70s, so I was just about seven or eight, he had a quite dangerous form of hepatitis spent weeks in the hospital. My mom looked into food, into nutrition, how she had to feed him, and she then became a health food fanatic and a vegetarian. Health food fanatic and a vegetarian. So we were eating whole grain stuff when most people didn't even know what it was Like whole grain bread and whole grain pasta and raw vegetables until the cows came home, so anything. There was hardly ever any sugar. That was when I went out with friends or to friends' houses. I could have sweets. It was pretty, pretty strict and I mean my mom tried to make like really tasty vegetarian dishes but I was not really very much into eating for pleasure, it was eating for health.
Brad Minus:Interesting that is. Yeah, in the 70s that was not heard of, at least here in America. We were just starting our SAD, the Standard American Diet. Things were just starting to get supersized and all that other great stuff. So just because I'm curious, because so growing up in the 70s and you were a gymnast, so were you a fan of, like, Nadia Komanić?
Kim Rahir:Absolutely she was my hero. I don't know. Do you remember Olga Korbut?
Brad Minus:I couldn't remember Korbut, but I remembered Olga.
Kim Rahir:Yeah, of course they were our heroes. We loved them.
Brad Minus:And whenever there were like Olympic Games, we'd be glued to the television Absolutely. When the Olympics were there, every four years, that's what was on the television, no matter what it was. A lot of it was whether it was gymnastics, or in the winter it was figure skating, or it was track and the decathlon. Those were things that were always on the television during those two weeks. So every four years was like it was a celebration in my house and gymnastics was something that we followed and I remember that. I, I totally remember, because it said 1.0 on scoreboard because the scoreboard wasn't made for it.
Kim Rahir:It was such a big moment it's, and you're witnessing it and you know something special is happening, but you don't realize that this is like big history going on and you're there to watch the happening. Yeah, that was. We love those girls.
Brad Minus:Great, yeah, Okay, good, I was just like. I didn't know if it was well, Olga Korver was from Russia when Nadia Komanić was from Romania. I didn't know if there was a like when you were growing up, if there was any kind of rivalry there, especially since you were a gymnast. I didn't know, but that's why I was curious, that's why I had to know. I just had to figure it out. But that's great. So, so in secondary. So you went to secondary school, right? What was that like in Germany for you?
Kim Rahir:It was very short. I'm going to tell you the full truth. I skipped a grade and I skipped a grade and I still had no struggles. And then there was another thing where you could get your A-levels half a year early if you're prepared by yourself. I did that too, so I finished everything one and a half years in advance. I was always thinking and this is something that I don't believe in anymore today I thought at the time oh, if I can just get ahead, get ahead like, be faster, start everything faster. Then I don't know what I thought I would be getting to or what was going to happen, but I thought, yeah, let's do this as fast as possible, Not really focusing on the process, but life taught me how to do that later.
Brad Minus:So with that speed that you were going at, how were your grades? Because you're obviously very smart.
Kim Rahir:My grades were I don't know how to translate that to US numbers.
Brad Minus:Oh, true it was like 100%.
Kim Rahir:Really, my any levels was a 100%. Yeah, nice. I don't feel so good, I feel like I'm bragging, but it's just the truth.
Brad Minus:No, so a lot of people. It's hurry up right and you were very speedy on getting yourself, so obviously sometimes trying to get it done. A lot of times in my case, that means that, okay, I'm suffering, I'm going to sacrifice an A for a B in order for me to get through, but you didn't. That's amazing. Where did you go to university?
Kim Rahir:I went to Bonn, which was the capital at the time, the temporary capital that had after the Second World War and nobody thought it was ever going to change at the time. And I went to Bonn and I picked my course from the catalog. I just went through it and thought, what do I like? And I picked political science because it had all the things that I was curious about. And then I matched that they had to have two more subjects and I took history because I love history. And then I took French because I thought my English was okay but I wanted to improve my French. But picking French like French philology at uni, I could tell you is not the best way to learn a language.
Brad Minus:I can imagine Just real quick. Was it a required course in secondary school to take English?
Kim Rahir:Yes.
Brad Minus:Okay, and that's still going on today, right?
Kim Rahir:Yes, absolutely. And I remember that my brother and my mom had a fight because my mom insisted that we took two languages and I also took French in school I just thought it was not quite as evolved as my English and my brother, he didn't want to take French, he hated it, and he somehow managed to switch it for, I think, computer science or something. And my mom was very upset and said oh, I have a diploma without a second language. Foreign language is not a diploma. And there was a big fight going on.
Brad Minus:Oh, wow, yeah, that must be something. So you actually I don't know how much after you graduated from university, but you actually were a journalist for a long time, weren't you?
Kim Rahir:Yes, yes, I graduated, I think I did a master's in five years. At the time that was normal. You did eight semesters, which is four years, and then you had one year for your dissertation. Then I did a PhD, still in political science, and when I finished that I started work at a news agency in Bonn which somehow I stumbled upon that job through friends which was the German desk of a news agency from France, from Agence France-Presse.
Brad Minus:Oh wow, that's crazy. What was your specialty? Political science, probably, right.
Kim Rahir:In a news agency, you have to do everything.
Brad Minus:Oh really.
Kim Rahir:You have to do absolutely everything. Yes, because they cover everything and you have shifts, and there are shifts when you are responsible for the whole world and everything that comes up, it pops onto your screen and then you say, oh, is this important for Germany? Okay, we'll take it. Is this important for Germany, for German clients? Is that enough? We don't need that. And so it could be economy, it could be society, it could be like fun stuff.
Brad Minus:The only thing we didn't do at that desk was sports. What An ex-gymnast can't cover sports.
Kim Rahir:Isn't that unfair? You know what? I don't know about the situation now at all, because I'm so far away from media and from Germany, but at the time there was a specialized news agency for sports just sports and they were like gold standard. There was no way anybody could have messed with them, so there was no point in spending resources on that.
Brad Minus:So how long did you remain at that desk?
Kim Rahir:It was from 1990 to 1995. And then I got married to a colleague who worked in Paris and we got to know each other over the phone colleague who worked in paris and we got to know each other over the phone.
Brad Minus:Okay, that's interesting. Right 1995 was like.
Brad Minus:Now we're just starting the dot coms they're yeah, just in the beginning, and all the bbs boards and all that stuff that was started to become news and where the yahoo and all that people were making like billions of dollars, it was crazy. So there was no. There was no online dating or there was no teams or any like a facetime or anything like that or anything like this, like what we're doing right now. At the time so you made sure that you were, that you got to know each other over the phone. That's a lot of time.
Kim Rahir:Well, we had to work. I mean, I had to pester him because there were always special needs for the German service. So I had to call Paris and say, could you send this paper a little bit sooner, and stuff like this. And then we got to talk and I think we met, also for work reasons, and then I think we went on dates like twice and then we got married. What I'm not making this up, it's the truth.
Brad Minus:And you're still married. Yes, that's incredible.
Kim Rahir:I think it's crazy and reckless of my daughter way to do that. I would probably be very nervous, but yeah.
Brad Minus:Yeah, but I mean you're talking about most of your conversations were on the phone, no-transcript does it just doesn't happen. You know what I mean. Now the people are meeting on these, on these dating sites, and they're only lasting like a few years and it's half at least here in america, it's a 50, you know I think it's the same in western europe.
Kim Rahir:It's. I think it's for relationships. It's the same as for everything that we do. We're're just totally over flooded with stimuli. We have so much choice all the time. Our brain is not really made for this and that's also why people are always seeking new thrills and going for drugs or binging TV shows, whatever it is. There's just so much on offer and our brain is built like this. It wants to go for stuff, for new stuff and interesting stuff, and then, if there is so much to be had, then it will most of the time go, try, get it, and I don't think it serves us. It doesn't serve our happiness, but that's how the world is, and I feel quite grateful to have lived in a non-digital world for a while. It's hard to imagine how we did things, but we did right.
Brad Minus:Oh, exactly, listen. I used to be a residential appraiser and that's how I made money through college and I had to read a map to get to the different places. And you give a map to somebody. Now they have no idea what it is or how to use it. If you can't GPS it, you're done.
Kim Rahir:With the map you've got a real feel for the place and you really learn the place. I've been in Madrid for 10 years and I still rely on GPS for quite a few trips, because I've never really internalized the layout of the city, because I was never forced to. Before that, before digital times, you would take the map and then you would look at the street and then you walk down it and think, oh, this looks different. But somehow it inscribed itself into your brain too and next time you would know.
Brad Minus:Exactly when you used a map. You knew where to go the next time. But now at GPS, we just turn off our brains and just let GPS do what it's going to do, and you get there and that's it. And if you want to go back, you just put it back into the GPS and don't necessarily remember. Yeah, so that's interesting as well. So in 1995, you got married and, did you like, start to live together.
Kim Rahir:Yes, I left my job and we moved to Dubai.
Brad Minus:You moved to Dubai. We did Before. It was fashionable. Yeah, yeah, what was that like? What was Dubai like in 1995?
Kim Rahir:I always called it like a big, glitzy shopping mall in the desert. Okay, because there's no landscape-wise there's nothing. It really is like the desert. The climate is extremely harsh because it's very hot and super humid. Everybody thinks, oh, it's the desert, must be dry, because that's what we think. Well, it's on the water. It's extremely humid and even at the time, the people who were there to make money, which makes for a weird vibe in the society I mean, we were journalists. I mean I started freelancing, my husband was assigned there. So you come with a different perspective. You just watch and look for stories and you're an observer. But most people were there to make money and I mean, bless them, Of course you would, but it made for a very weird vibe and there was hardly any culture. You couldn't watch movies. I mean you could go to the cinema, but if there was something in the movie that was even remotely offensive, they would chop it out. So we watched movies and never understood what was going on, because parts were missing. Right.
Brad Minus:Oh man, they censored the movies for you. That's wonderful. So how long were you in Dubai For? Four years, four years, yeah, it doesn't sound like the best four years of your life.
Kim Rahir:I can't say that it was quite exciting. I don't want to sound so. It's just that everybody says oh, Dubai, what we did? Because we were Germans. We traveled, I went, I got to see Saudi Arabia, I went to Iraq twice under Saddam Hussein, which is a. I mean, that was an experience If you've ever. I don't even know how to describe it, except that, like you can feel fear in the air so thick that you think you can cut through it, and the feeling of crossing the border and leaving Iraq is one of the best feelings I've ever had in my life. At the time.
Brad Minus:I actually know that feeling. I was there and, yeah, I agree wholeheartedly the people. When he finally fell, there was a relief in the air, except that there also was a. There was a fear, because they just thought that he could just be replaced with somebody. That was either that somebody could be worse, but let's leave that alone, but that's OK. So Dubai was like your gateway you were able to get around and see a lot of other things. That's fantastic. And so, after four years, where did you, where did you move?
Kim Rahir:We moved back to Paris, which is headquarters for my husband's company, and we stayed for nine months, and then we moved to Vienna and at the end of Dubai, our first child was born, by the way, in Dubai.
Brad Minus:Oh, that's amazing. So then you moved to Vienna. Well, you're a little closer to home. Yes A little, a little closer right. I was in Vienna. I loved Vienna.
Kim Rahir:Vienna is fantastic, yeah.
Brad Minus:Yeah, that was great. That was great, did you enjoy?
Kim Rahir:that Absolutely. I had two more kids, which sort of keeps you busy. But Austria is just you take the car three hours, you're in the Alps, you're in the most spectacular mountain range that Europe has to offer. It's beautiful. It's beautiful, it's well conserved. They realized this sort of green ecological trend much before anybody else. It's because they had like a huge scandal with how do you call this with wine. They put they had, so they had cut the wine with something. They had spiked the wine, I think. I don't know how you call it. So they had to reinvent themselves and they did, and it was beautiful at the time and it's green the landscape, everything. You can go to wonderful places. That was a great time.
Brad Minus:I spent some time in Kitzbühel, and I love Kitzbühel. Oh my God, it was fantastic. So how long were you in Vienna?
Kim Rahir:Four years.
Brad Minus:It sounds like a military day. That's like when I was in the military. It was like three years, four years and then you move.
Kim Rahir:It's a bit like that, because it's very important for a journalist to not become too integrated into the place. You have to stay the observer, which in a way is great, because you don't worry too much about what's going on in the country, you don't feel too concerned, you can enjoy everything, because you know this is temporary Stuff that doesn't work so nicely. You don't take so seriously because you know it's temporary. But of course you don't have roots and you're not integrated.
Brad Minus:So trade-offs, like everything in life so between your, between being a journalist and moving all the time, you're pretty well traveled, I imagine. Can you just, so we're not gonna just gonna keep rolling with this, what other can you list off the rest of your journey to get you to Madrid?
Kim Rahir:Yeah, we always went back to Paris, and then we spent four years in Berlin and then another three years in Paris, and then we came to Madrid.
Brad Minus:Awesome, awesome. So there is something that happened when you were 50. I'm not mistaken. Is that when? So you were diagnosed with MS? What were the symptoms leading up to that and what was to live to that diagnosis?
Kim Rahir:Yeah, it's a bit of a saga. It started two years before I had an autoimmune episode which is called Guillain-Barré the syndrome Guillain-Barré Apparently it's very common in soldiers and could be with my three kids in my full-time job. I was soldiering on a little bit at the time. That sent me to hospital from one day to the next. I was paralyzed from the hip downwards for three weeks, had to learn to walk again and everything. But they told me afterwards that was a one-off it comes, it goes.
Kim Rahir:Guillain-barrarre is the name of the two French doctors who discovered this. My kids were still small and it was super scary. And when I got over this I was like, oh my God, I get a second shot at life, I'm going to do everything much better and new perspective and gratitude and what have you. And then, after two more years, my left hand was going numb. So the first episode was in Berlin. I was 50. We were in Paris. My hand went numb and went to see the doctor and he said yeah, this time it's different, this time it's actually MS. That was a low blow.
Brad Minus:That's yeah, I can't even imagine. So just to give a little thing. So this is episode 40. Episode 24 with Kelly Magin. She detailed a very, I should say, a four-year saga of going through that, where she was completely paralyzed, couldn't talk, couldn't do anything. Wow With the Guillain-Barre, and then say that again Guillain. Guillain-barre yes, guillain-barre. Yeah, she just thought it was gb.
Brad Minus:so I'll do that in the future yeah, no, it's fine, it's fine, but that was what we just got to the point, because I couldn't say it, I couldn't remember it. But but, yeah, so check out. Next you can check, recheck out episode 24, and on the youtube version of this I will put that in the. I will put a card up there so you can grab, so you can get a little bit more, because she really dug into what it is, how it is, so you'll be able to grab that. So, so, all right, so you got, so you ended up with that. But how did so? Did you? Were you able to get past that before the diagnosis?
Kim Rahir:Yes.
Brad Minus:Okay.
Kim Rahir:I got out of the hospital after the six weeks I was on in a wheelchair. I had to use crutches the one crutch I learned to walk again. It's just because the nerves had been attacked and they were healing. And I got treatment for another year, I think. And then one day the doctor said we stopped the treatment, you're fine, it's all is great, and I thought I was just a normal person again, not somebody who hangs around in hospital. And then the second strike, which was a low blow and it felt very dark. Mostly, I mean, I didn't have much damage. My left hand is still numb to this day.
Kim Rahir:What's the worst thing? The fear, the uncertainty. You don't know where you're going, and some doctors. I don't want to blame them, but I remember, while I was getting some kind of infusion, a doctor came by, asked me questions for a survey he was doing and he said, yeah, he was researching a particular variation of MS where you go blind. And I said, oh, thank you very much for sharing that with me. I needed to know that you could go blind too. So it's scary.
Brad Minus:Yeah, let's step back, because you said it was a low blow. But what were your symptoms that led to that? You said your hand was numb.
Kim Rahir:Numbness in the left hand and it was ascending, and then it took them a while to catch it because of my gb thought it might be that. So they gave me an infusion of something that didn't help, and then they did an mri and then they saw damage in the spine and then they gave me I don't know how you call this cortisone, we call it right, right away. And then they stopped it. That stops. But because it took a while before they discovered it, my left hand is still numb, which I find that fascinating. Actually, because the sensations, the weird sensations, I do have them in my left hand, but I know that it's a lesion in my spine that causes this and it's very hard to wrap your head around that.
Brad Minus:I can imagine. It runs in my family so I got a pretty good education on it. I did have an aunt that passed away and I have an uncle right now that is affected by it. He's doing great, by the way. He still plays golf, does the whole thing. But it got a cocktail of different drugs and PT and the whole bit. So my first client that I ever had I'm an endurance coach. He had MS first client and I'll talk about that anecdote in a minute. But so how bad. So you got the numbness in the hand. That was the start of it. Did it get worse from there?
Kim Rahir:No, it didn't. That was the first relapse. I had one more where I was actually I was doing a weird yoga pose on the floor and I think I was doing the plow or something and there was a tingling in my spine and I know this was another one and that was it. That was it. And I recently talked to a doctor who said, yeah, we have this five-year rule. I don't know if you're well-versed in MS, maybe.
Brad Minus:I had no idea that if you make it through five, years without relapses and problems, that you're more or less on the good side of the tracks. So yeah, so they're saying that if you go five years then they consider you in complete remission Doesn't mean that it doesn't come back, unfortunately.
Kim Rahir:I'm not trying to fear you.
Brad Minus:I'm not trying to fear you.
Kim Rahir:No, I'm aware.
Brad Minus:Yeah, well, it's more, for I just want it's something that needs to be put out there the doctors nowadays there seems to be an issue with ad news, they got to say it, but they try to be, they try to walk on eggshells and they're like, oh well, this is going to, you're going to be fine. And for fear of lawsuits, oh my goodness, Like here, right.
Kim Rahir:You scared me so much and I'm traumatized, so pay me five million or stop.
Brad Minus:Yeah, it's well, they so, they so. The bad news is, if it's wrong or if you come out of it, then they were, they're considered a laughingstock and they misdiagnosed or whatever. And then then out here america's sue happy. It's like oh, you were wrong, you made me go through all this stuff and you were wrong. I'm gonna sue you, um and get so they can get paid. And it's ridiculous, it's just absolutely ridiculous. I would and the physicians have to carry insurance for reasons like that. It's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. So, yeah, that's a trend that's going on out here. So that was the one relapse. So you left journalism after getting-.
Kim Rahir:Yeah, that was a little bit later. So when I got my diagnosis I fought with a doctor and he said you need lifelong treatment. This is I was writing the prescription and I said hang on a minute, can we talk about this? His lifelong treatment was that. I found that very scary and I think because of my hospital stay when I was paralyzed, this experience of having no power at all, like nothing in a hospital. You don't even decide what the light is on in your room or when there's a person in your room. It's crazy. You have zero power and I think somehow giving away my power again to needing lifelong treatment, that really scared me. But he I mean he was not used to people talking back, that's for sure asking so many questions. He was like really just prescribing this thing, want to send me on my way, and I fought with him for a long time until he got a little bit impatient so I had to give in.
Kim Rahir:I got the treatment. I'd inject myself with interferon beta three times a week, which has unpleasant side effects which I covered with over-the-counter drugs because I just wanted to live my life and I wanted to make myself physically strong. So that's when I started training like seriously lifting heavy, and I got better and better through that, which was crazy. I had asked the doctor can I exercise? And he said yeah, okay, like actually saying I have no idea what I'm talking about, I just don't want any responsibility. Fits nicely with what you just said. If I tell you go lift weights and you hurt yourself, there's my lawsuit. But a nurse told me that exercise was great for a mass, makes you fatigue resistant and everything. So I just went for it, got myself a nice book book, started lifting heavy, very meticulous with form. I wanted to be like the perfect lifter. And everything got stronger and stronger.
Kim Rahir:And I think the main thing that happens when you do strength training is your mental health. It's you become a different person. You become so confident the way you carry yourself because you I think it's somehow, it's just instinctive If you feel like you can hold your own or you can carry something heavy or you can push your car, whatever it is, I think it gives you this feeling of being adequate, or more than adequate, to whatever life throws at you. And now I experience this, and now there's tons and tons of research Like all kinds of mental health symptoms get better with exercise. There's absolutely no doubt about this.
Kim Rahir:The one thing that pains me and I still haven't found a way to deal with that is when somebody is really low with their mental health and they're really feeling depressed. You can't go and tell them oh, just exercise, you're going to be fine. It doesn't work. You can't get them to take that step because they're in a place where it's hard for them. And this is something where we have to find a way get them closer to trying that as a remedy. And I think doctors they could help a lot If doctors were to tell patients try and do this. Maybe it would be a little bit easier for them to say this. Otherwise it just sounds like, oh, come on, don't be a sloth, get up and move and you're going to be fine, which is so careless and it really doesn't work. So we need to find a way to help people who have mental health symptoms to get to move without like feeling pushed or shamed or anything.
Kim Rahir:And I got I mean, we moved to Spain. I joined a new gym. It's always the first thing I did when we went somewhere joined a gym. I told nobody that I had MS. That was my, my dirty secret, but I didn't want that label. I don't, I would just want it to be I'm happy to be the crazy German who lifts heavy. I don't want to be the oh, this is the lady with MS. I didn't want that and found a great neurologist here, after three years I think.
Kim Rahir:We were going on a camping trip to Canada and I said can I stop the treatment for two weeks, because I don't want to take all this equipment on a camping trip? And he said you can stop period. Really he did, which is to this day very unusual. Usually you start this thing and you never stop. He is very up to date, goes to conventions all the time and he says actually we're not quite sure that this medication is very effective, and if something happens and you need medication again, it's not going to be this one. And I so love him for having said this, because so many doctors would have that's just what you described would have feared like, oh my God, you have treated me with the wrong thing. And that's not that at all. He just had the stature to say we're not sure, so you can stop it. And it gave me a lot of confidence because if I was doing so well, it made it more likely that it was not because of the medication but because I was getting better.
Brad Minus:Yeah, and was there any side effects when you came off of it? Like which one? That's awesome, like because I yeah. That's some of the fear that some people you've been on it for us. How long were you on it before you they told you to stop?
Kim Rahir:I think it was a total of when did I start? I think it was three or four years, four years three or four years.
Brad Minus:They didn't know and this neurologist was up to date well enough where he was like, I don't even know. If it helps you're on it for four years and he says, all right, stop, and no side effects. And you just kept getting stronger. Obviously I'm getting stronger you're talking about that in just a minute, but but yeah, that was my second shot at life after the first, after the gb yeah and now this was and I'm I.
Kim Rahir:I don't know I don't sound cheesy, but every step that I take every day, I'm grateful, I appreciate it. I know it's not a given.
Brad Minus:So, gb, that you basically were paralyzed on the side of your body, then being diagnosed with MS, were paralyzed on the side of your body, then being diagnosed with MS, and then you decide, all right, well, I've already been going to the gym, but now I'm going to strength train. What led you to dedicate?
Kim Rahir:yourself to strength training, weightlifting. I had this urge I wanted to become strong, I wanted to be physically strong. It was instinctive. And once I got to Spain, I worked with a PT, which was great fun, because most women when they go to the gym and they work with a PT, they want to toy with pink dumbbells and they want to walk on the treadmill and stuff. And he was so happy to find someone who wanted to do pull-ups and deadlifts and he then one day said would you like to try Olympic weightlifting? Because he had himself gotten into this.
Brad Minus:I said okay.
Kim Rahir:And I was thinking about this before when you mentioned the Olympic Games in your home. That was my memory of Olympic weightlifting Washing the Olympics with my dad and like overweight, hairy guys in totally weird leotards on a stage lifting extremely heavy stuff. But I found it like I was curious. I said, ok, let's try. And he showed me there's two movements in Olympic weightlifting and I tried it and I totally sucked at it. It's like there just have to be strong. It's technical and that's what hooked me.
Kim Rahir:Because you have to every single lift. You have to be totally present, you have to give it your everything. You can never say, oh, I've done this, I do it again and I have to be like this, just this moment. This is what I have to do. And you can always get better, and I started this when I was like 55. So it's not like you. You don't. Your body doesn't learn it like, just like this. You have to grind and do it over and over again. But I loved it so much that I joined pure weightlifting club and after two weeks at that club they said, hey, great that you're trading with us. Would you like to compete?
Brad Minus:Two weeks and they're like do you want to compete?
Kim Rahir:Because they ask everybody to compete. They're a competitive club. And I said something that I would never say again today. I said what? Do you know how old I am? And they said we don't care. And then I said yes, and I'm convinced in my 30s I would never have said yes. I would never have said yes. I would have thought, oh my God, this is going to be stressful, this is going to be I don't know go to competitions, do stuff. And in your 50s and so my weightlifting coach actually says people in their 50s, they become anarchists and they just do whatever they please and it's very difficult to manage them when they so I think, yes, let's do this and best decision ever made I I just just a third of the way through my 50s and and yeah, all of a sudden I don't care what people think about me anymore, I don't even.
Brad Minus:I just don't care. If I want to try something, I'm going to try it, and the hell with anybody that's going to say anything that I can't do it. So yeah, I get it, I get it. Let me share one anecdote. So I just I don't do an episode on myself, so whenever I find a comparison where it's similar than I was, that's the time that I give a little bit.
Brad Minus:My first client as an endurance coach was somebody with MS. I was in the pool, I was swimming. This guy stops me and he asked me a couple of questions what are you training for? And I says, well, I was training for a triathlon. And I says, well, and I just started my coaching business. And he's like, oh, he says, would he asked me? He says, would weak ankles stop you from taking on a client? And I'm like, no, we just strengthen them, not a big deal. He goes well, what about if I had MS? And I said, definitely, I would not turn you away because you need to move. You've got to move when you're with MS.
Brad Minus:So, to make a long story as short as possible, he started running and got to a 5K and he was great and we moved into the 10K and then he did a half marathon and loved that distance. That was his favorite distance. He did do one marathon, but his thing was is that, no matter whether it was organized or it was by himself, he did a half marathon every weekend, either Saturday or Sunday. He went out and did a half marathon straight up. Now, don't get me wrong. During the week he did his aerobic runs. I did put him in the gym for mobility and agility not necessarily for strength, but that's a side effect of mobility and agility but he kept this routine. I saw him about I think I saw him like eight years later and ran into him at a race. Of course, that's where you run into people, right? Yeah? And he gave me this biggest hug in the world and I says, hey, I'm like are you still running a half marathon every week, every weekend? He goes well, yeah.
Brad Minus:So what happened was that his medication dropped dramatically, like the dosages were next to nothing. I don't know what he was on. So at that time I now take into consideration my client's medications. But at the time I was brand new and it's not something that I thought was my, was my business. But he's like no, drastically reduced this and this. My doctor took me completely off of this and I like I am like next to no medication, not a little bit different than you, but he was still on just like baby doses is what he called it on baby doses of this stuff now, just to keep me, just to make for maintain maintenance, and I was like wow, I mean that's amazing.
Brad Minus:And he's like, yeah, if I stopped doing my half marathon every weekend, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go back on medication. Oh, no, yeah, but OK, so that's running. It's more an endurance side. Yes, he was in the gym twice a week for agility and stability, but and then three other runs per week. So he was running four days a week and yeah, and you can't tell he's lean, he looks great and he's flying like literally doing half marathon and like our 27 hour 30. I mean just crazy times. Just because he just kept doing it. I mean you're just going to get better. If you keep doing something, you're going to get better. So that's my anecdote on MS. And I was. I was very happy to see him at that point.
Kim Rahir:Yeah, no, but I love that you're sharing this, because this is also nuance is always a problem. We're not claiming that you can cure MS with exercise, but you can improve. Anybody can improve their quality of life like tremendously. So when you have a condition like this, you even more. You want to try see can I maybe improve at this. It's really important. So that just because there's no guarantee that you have the outcome like your client had, doesn't mean that it's not worth a shot to feel better, get better and healthier. You need to do something.
Brad Minus:And even somebody without a terminal condition or an autoimmune disease. The first couple of weeks are going to hurt right, as you're doing things you've never done before. So that's where a lot of people stop. That's what somebody that's absolutely off the street decides that he wants to get better at something, and a lot of times it stops people. They walk into the gym, they're told what to do get better at something and a lot of times it stops people. They walk into the gym, they're told what to do, they do something, and then the next day they're so sore they can't zip up their own zipper. And and that stops them all of a sudden. You be you, they become. The association with the gym is pain, not pleasure. So they stop going. They'll try again and they do the same thing. What I found is that you need to start small and slow.
Kim Rahir:Absolutely.
Brad Minus:Yeah.
Kim Rahir:Preaching to the choir.
Brad Minus:Exactly, exactly. So I put my. So like my first, if I'm taking on someone that has never run before in their whole life. They literally go through sessions of walk, running, walk, run, rock run, and at very small rate, and sometimes like twice a week and that's it. I'm like, all right, you're going to go and you're going to walk for five minutes, you're going to run for three minutes, you're going to walk for five minutes, you're going to run for two minutes, you're going to walk for five minutes, and that's it. That's all you're going to do.
Brad Minus:And they feel like they feel great. They maybe the next day they might be a little tight, but they're never painful. And then I just keep increasing the run interval and all of a sudden they're doing five minute walk, 20 minute run, five minute walk, 19 minute run and a five minute walk, and they're like over the moon. And then we start removing some of the walks, but and they're just over the moon. I then we start removing some of the blocks and they're just over the moon. I can't believe. I ran 39 minutes, 40 minutes, amazing, I did that. That's amazing. And because it's slow and progressive every week, that they're not feeling like they're super sore. They don't get that pain, they get a tightness which I move to have them associate that with accomplishment.
Kim Rahir:Okay, that's smart.
Brad Minus:I associate it with accomplishment, not with pain, so it's something like hey, I did this. And this tightness when I wake up the next morning or two days later. This tightness is my badge of honor that I accomplished something. So now I move their association to something positive. So they will go out the next time and they will do it.
Kim Rahir:They're gone looking for it. What you're describing is particularly important for the women I work with, because I work with women in their 40s and older and if you haven't done any exercise for a while, you have no idea of where is your body yet. What can you do, what can't you do? And now, in the age of Google, so many women they say I mean they will Google something like fat burning, what's going to pop up? High intensity interval training, and they're going to try it, and then they're going to get hurt. They get disgusted, frustrated and hurt. Or you wouldn't believe the number of women I talked to try it and then they're going to get hurt. They're going to get disgusted, frustrated and hurt.
Kim Rahir:Or you wouldn't believe the number of women I talked to who would say, oh, I did a couch to 5K. Not one of the women I talked to got out of there uninjured. It's like my ankle, my knee, like in six weeks or something. It's crazy stuff. And when you have reached a certain age, you really and that's the most important part you need to start where you are and you need to, like, know what is my strength, what is my mobility, how can I challenge myself but not overwhelm myself or get hurt, because that's one of the big things. When you're older you don't want to get hurt because it takes you so much longer to come back in and it will throw you back a lot more than a young person, young lifter. They get hurt and then they come back after two weeks and they're as good as new.
Brad Minus:Right, a coach that I had for a while told me this great anecdote. I don't want to say an anecdote, it's a quote Train the person that showed up that day. Right, that goes all the way around, right? You train the person that showed up, not the person you think showed up yes the person that showed up.
Brad Minus:So if you're, you have to be very honest with yourself. So, like you said, someone that has come in and they've only been training for a week and all of a sudden they're feeling 10 feet tall and bulletproof. They still got to maintain the program and still progressively get better. Not increase their load, but not increase it 10 pounds in one sitting. You're not going to do that. I'm depending on the lift, obviously, but you know, after a week of training. So you've got to friggin show, you've got to train the person that showed up. So, which you did and you kept doing until you competed, and at what? At age 60, which is just less than a year ago, and what happened there and where was it. Tell us about the, tell us about what the competition was and what it was like, and then give us the punchline well, it was a european masters weightlifting championship.
Kim Rahir:It's something that it's amazing. I'm sure you know about this. Masters, like people, are masters when they're over 35, which is a little bit sad because a 35 year old person to me seems like a very young person. But then you're a master's athlete and people are now organizing competitions and events to keep playing their sports. You have it in track and field. I think it's very common in all kinds of sports. So people don't sit next to the fire and knit socks, they go out there and they compete to the fire and knit socks. They go out there and they compete. And in these weightlifting competitions you have, like these very old Easter Europeans, old school. There's a guy, I think he's 89. I have seen him several times. He travels, he goes to the weigh-in and he goes and lifts. It's amazing. I want to be like that at 89.
Kim Rahir:So this one was the European championship in Ireland, in the beautiful city of Waterford, I think that's how they pronounce it, and I actually won. I won in my weight category and in my age group, which I never thought was something I could achieve. I don't know why I thought I couldn't. Sometimes I think it's because I was always told to shut up as a kid that I think I should lift more than anybody else. It was a great day. I was ready, I did what I could. You get three attempts for each lift and I never make all six. The last one is always like a bit daring and you try to do something and then more often than not would you fail that last lift. But it's fine, it's great, it was a wonderful feeling.
Kim Rahir:But there's one thing that I need to say, and this is more like an overall life wisdom, but I think it's really important. It was a great day, it was a great moment. I was really super happy, but I was not like over the moon, euphoric or anything, because I am very focused on keeping my highs low in order to keep my lows high. I don't know if that makes any sense to you. We have this in all the systems in the body, in the human body, are actually like in a seesaw manner and if you've ever heard about this the book Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke the higher your highs, the lower your lows.
Kim Rahir:And I try to tell my clients also make this amplitude, make it nice and small. It doesn't stick with the narrative like we have to go like big and big ass this and go for it and must be the best time of your life. And when people get married now, I think that they, I don't know travel to castles like hundreds of miles away and it must be all the best and the greatest and the most fantastic, and I don't know what. And then, after this big high, then the next day you wake up and the person next to you is not, it's not the prince, it's just the sky, you know. And then you drop very low.
Kim Rahir:So I was really happy, accomplished. I felt that I had worked hard for it, but it was not like, oh my god, the greatest moment of my life. It was just fulfillment and happiness, and that's fine, that's fine. I think it's really crucial to be aware of this, that we don't need to look for just like the next thrill, the next kick and even bigger and better. And it's the same when it comes to back to my work. When it comes to eating, people are always looking for a new taste, a new combo, a new restaurant, a new this, and it doesn't really lead to happiness or fulfillment, and definitely not to a lean body.
Brad Minus:I get it. I get it. I tell my clients, both when they've achieved something that they have set out to do and they did, or they've exceeded their goals, the same as when things don't go the way they want them to. You get 20 minutes, you cross the finish line, you find your results. From that moment, you have 20 minutes.
Kim Rahir:Yes, that's great. I love that. 20 minutes yes, that's great, that's right.
Brad Minus:It's 20 minutes to either whine and cry or and get mad and throw things, or you have 20 minutes to be over the moon, and then you were just remain happy and go back to the, go back to that person that was just happy to be there, that was just happy to compete, right, and so I, I, I give them. I'm like you got 20 minutes, that's it. And when I get these texts, I'm like I screwed up and I'm like, and I sucked them back. Okay, what time you have. Like what time did you find the results? How, about five minutes ago? I'm like you got 15 minutes left and I don't want to hear it, oh you don't know, I'm gonna use that actually.
Brad Minus:Yeah, and I do it for both and I'm like great, I'm like fantastic. I says, keep the dopamine going, keep the euphoria for the next 15 minutes and then go get a beer so enjoy it. Yeah, so that tends to be because most of my clients are habitual racers. So there's another. There's already another race on the schedule. It might it's most likely not better or bigger. It's a race they've already done or something.
Brad Minus:So for me, it's always just want to. We're. Our goal is to do better than we did last time. Yeah, so that's, that's basically that's always the goal. You just want to do a little bit better than last time. I'm'm like you come in one second faster, or if you felt 10% better, you might not have come across any faster, but when you came across the line, you felt better than you did the last time. Yes, you've won, you've totally won. You know what I mean.
Brad Minus:And for us the course could be different. You've got to worry about wind and heat and cold and the whole bit. You know what I mean, and for us it's the course could be different. You got to worry about wind and heat and cold and the whole bit. You know what I mean which could just absolutely kill a race. But most of the time it's like but you want to go back, you want to, just want to, as coming in an hour faster, it's the same. You've got a PR, that's it Right, but that's amazing. So when did you decide that you wanted to start coaching yourself?
Kim Rahir:It had always been some kind of dream at the back of my mind for quite some time and I think I took the plunge when I got off my treatment. Actually, that's when I felt, probably, this feeling like you get another shot. It's like a new beginning, and I had been a bit frustrated with journalism for a while. I'd been working a lot for TV, which is so superficial, so superficial.
Kim Rahir:You don't really give information. It's become entertainment and information has become a commodity that you have to sell and I mean, I'm not against this, like I love stories and you want to, you can sell the information as a story to, to make it interesting and to you want people to enjoy the information. But if that's like the first priority and then everything else has to give way, it's not for me. It's not for me and I felt that. So I decided I think it was 2017, I had quit my treatment and I quit journalism, took all the certifications and I wanted to go online, because at the time, we were still on four-year contracts and we were already in Madrid, but we didn't know how long we were going to stay. So I decided to do everything online learn how to coach online. Then I took the ACE American Council on Exercise exams and everything, and then I started my business, which is a whole. It's like weightlifting you have to learn so much.
Brad Minus:Yep, I took that plunge in 2012 and, yeah, still learning about business, still learning, still finding stuff that's new, and in the fitness industry, things change just like dramatically.
Kim Rahir:It's crazy.
Brad Minus:Yeah, even on the legal side. So, but your specialty is women over 40 and is it's and it's basically it's strength, right? You talk more about strength and habits. It's strength, right, you talk more about strength and habits than just typically the whole weight loss. You do have a program for it, but that's not your, that's not your emphasis, right?
Kim Rahir:no, I mean, I think weight loss. Weight losses can be very important for health reasons, depending on where you're coming from, but it's about the perspective and the angle of attack. So the most effective thing that you could do is build muscle, and that's I mean that's for men and women alike. But since I know women's struggles better and I have this my own experience of getting better through becoming stronger, that's why I work mainly with women, and muscle and strength will take care of so many problems. It's like it's a one-stop shop solution and it's. It's actually quite simple, and here's the problem.
Kim Rahir:It's not intuitive for women to want to be strong. It's not part of our upbringing. We're taught to be small, slim, elegant, cute, pretty. What have you? When you have nice parents, they want you to be educated, but nobody ever teaches you that you need muscle and as a woman from 35 onwards, you're losing muscle mass like at an alarming rate, and we notice that something's off in our 40s when perimenopause starts. And then people will say, oh yeah, that's just hormones, and my mom had this and my grandma, I don't know. It's just hormones and I hate that because it's, first of all, it's not totally true. When you start feeling lousy in perimenopause, you're just beginning to notice what's going on. For most women, it's because for decades they haven't looked after their bodies and because they have looked after everybody else, they have looked after everything and everybody. And that's when you start paying the price. And so if somebody tells you it's just hormones, no, it's also. I hate this too, because when you say it's just hormones, it sounds like there's nothing you can do. It's like glaciers exist. What are you going to do? And it's not. Nothing of this is true. Yes, there are symptoms, and they can be like very unpleasant, but there's not one of them. That cannot be improved if you take care of your physical fitness, if you look after your nutrition, and then you need a little bit of mindfulness. I think stuff like this to complement it, and that's's it.
Kim Rahir:And what I love about this muscle solution is that it's so simple. It's so simple because it can inform all your choices. It will inform your food choices. What will I eat? What's best to eat to fuel my workout and to grow muscle? Yes, am I going to drink alcohol? Or do I want my body to grow some muscle overnight? Okay, am I going to go to bed on time so I can have the full benefit of growth hormone working for my body, for my health, for everything. So there's no overwhelm or overload, there's no ambiguity. It makes everything simple, it informs your choices and that doesn't mean that you have to live like a monk or something. But you know what to do and you can make an informed decision on when you're going to do it and maybe when you're going to have a party and do something else. And when I see all the solutions that are offered out there, so many women actually believe if they take like turmeric, the problems are going to go away that's been a thing about that.
Brad Minus:Some of the gurus have like figured out that they, that some of the longest living people in the blue zones, that they seem to have a lot more turmeric in their diet than anything else, and that just became, I think. But I agree with you. I think muscle is the muscle and moving to keep, yes, moving. But the old adage, it's the physics law an object that that stays in motion, an object in motion state, will stay in motion.
Kim Rahir:Yes, absolutely, yeah, that's it yeah.
Brad Minus:But and I know I've noticed that just with myself, right so I work out in the mornings and then I go to work and then I come home and if I'm coaching after work, I'm fine, I have no issue with whatsoever. But if I come home and I'm just hanging out talking and being on the couch, I'm tired. So an object in motion will stay in motion. So I noticed that and I was like I don't understand why I'm so tired. I'm in good shape. I have a low resting heart rate. Everything in my blood says it's great. But man, I, my, all my, everything in my blood says it's great. But man, come like six o'clock, I am like I could go to bed. I don't understand that. But those days that I'm coaching or I'm at a meet cause I also coach cross country I'm fine. Nine o'clock, 10 o'clock rolls around, I'm a hundred percent fine.
Brad Minus:I have no issues because I stayed in motion and I think that's something to definitely we need to get out there. My always things is like, no matter what you've done in the morning, wherever the workout is, I would say that if you work in an office, you should take your lunch or eat your lunch at your desk and then take a half hour, and then take 20 minutes and go walk. After dinner, same thing go walk, no matter what you did that day. Go walk Just 20 minutes, have a conversation with your significant other or your child or something like that, and just walk, because you'll be shocked at how much more energy you've got. Just because you stayed in motion, you didn't become stagnant.
Kim Rahir:Absolutely, and that's also. It's tricky, actually, because there's women who tell me but I work out regularly and still I'm tired and I can't lose weight. But if you go, even if you train every day for an hour in the gym and then you spend the rest of the day sitting down, you have a sedentary lifestyle.
Brad Minus:Right.
Kim Rahir:It's not. I know it sounds so harsh and so difficult to say that's not enough, but I think we're not realizing that our bodies are optimized for movement, which means that it's not like we're sitting, and then if we walk a little bit, we get better. No, if we don't move enough, we get worse. We're sitting all day, we get worse. We function best. Our health is best when we move. Actually, what I tell my clients is, as much as you can, that I take every opportunity, and there's something in our world today that makes that pretty hard.
Kim Rahir:Our environment is set up in a way for us not to move. Our environment invites us to sit at home, sit at at our desk, have food delivered to our doorstep, drive everywhere, and I'm going as far today as saying you have. We have to fight for our right to move. We have to see movement as a right and that the environment is somehow taking away from us. And it's a mindset shift that's really important, because we could easily just say, well, this is just my life, so I can't. And then I know that in the us there are areas, and it's a mindset shift that's really important because we could easily just say, yeah, well, this is just my life, so I can't. And then I know that in the US there are areas where it's extremely hard to walk right. I had a client. She said there's no sidewalks where I live. In Europe it's easier. But you really have to be intentional, deliberate. You have to say I need this for my health and I'm going to fight to make this happen.
Brad Minus:If I'm not mistaken and it's just because I watched part of the documentary and I heard something on the podcast that there are blue zones and the majority of them are in Spain and Italy. Do you know anything about blue zones?
Kim Rahir:I have no idea.
Brad Minus:Okay, so blue zones are the areas with the most population of centennials Longevity, okay, right, yeah Right. And the interesting part about these blue zones is just what you said. Most of them are geared to walking. You walk everywhere. You walk down the street.
Brad Minus:And they had these great interviews on this documentary that I saw that unfortunately I don't remember what the name of it is, but I will find it and I'll put it in the show notes, but there was.
Brad Minus:They interviewed this guy and they're like they're this gentleman who was older and they were like well, what's your day?
Brad Minus:Like he says well, I get up and I move my cows to a pasture and it's like he gets on a horse and he takes them out to this pasture and I think it's like five to six miles away and it's a long, freaking walk. And then he gallops back, he says I had my breakfast, he says I read a little bit, I might take a little nap. Then I walk down the street to the bar and I meet my friends, we play games, we have lunch and I walk back and then I get back on my horse and I go back and get my cows and I bring them back and then I have a little dinner, I might walk back down to the bar, I might walk to the restaurant, I might meet some friends, and then I come home and I go to bed and that's pretty much my day and I enjoy my life and I'm like, oh great. And then they ask and by the way, how old are you? He goes, I'm 103.
Kim Rahir:Wow, holy cow. Yes, that's amazing. You can see here in Spain, for example, now that the hot summer weather is here, as soon as the sun goes down, everybody goes outside. Everybody goes outside and goes for a walk. That's very common, maybe because you've been locked in by the heat and you just want to move and you haven't lost that natural instinct. Now, walking. It's crazy because walking gets either underestimated or overestimated. People who underestimate they were well, the bit of walking, that what it's not enough to get in shape, it's not enough to, which is not true. It's. I think it's like the most democratic, most accessible, simplest health tool that there is. And then, as people overestimate walking, they have a sedentary lifestyle, they walk for half an hour and then they say, oh, I walked, I can have a piece of cake now.
Brad Minus:Right.
Kim Rahir:That doesn't work either. We need to understand that it should be just normal to be on your feet most of the time.
Brad Minus:Exactly, exactly the time, exactly, exactly I. This morning. I had a five and a half hour bike ride this morning at about 18 miles an hour, and I'm still gonna walk this after. I'm still gonna walk tonight after dinner yes so it's just you be.
Brad Minus:You get the habit, and I think the habits are important. Right, so you move from there. But, kim, I gotta you. I am totally impressed with you.
Brad Minus:Your knowledge, your I don't want to say theory, your methodologies, on the way that you talk to your clients and you treat your clients and you prepare and move them in the direction that they need to go, is beyond reproach. I can just listen to you talk about some of the stuff forever, because you're right on the money and you've lived it, and I think that is the biggest gift that you give people is you've lived it. You show your experience and then you back it up with the research that you've done. And I think it's fantastic. That's the only thing I can say. And it was only a year and a half ago that you've done, and I think it's it's fantastic, that's the only thing I can say. And and it was only a year and a half ago that you won, or it was less than a year ago that you won the European, yeah it was about a about a year ago, and I'm preparing the world championship now, that is, in September.
Brad Minus:Okay, all right, and she's going to the world championship, so we need to, like you, lock onto that and we need to make sure that we know when that is. So we can look that up later on and I'll provide an update. World Championships when is that going to take place? Finland, finland. Very close to the village of Santa Claus. Awesome, awesome, oh well, we're going to be rooting for you. We totally are going to be rooting for you.
Brad Minus:Yes thank you that you take home gold at that and I know, with the determination that you've got and the compassion you've got, you're going to do really well. So I can already feel it. So I'm super excited about that. So we're going to make sure that we watch our blogs and look that stuff up on the Google box so we can make sure. And then if I find it, if I can find the link to it, I will put that in the show notes, make sure that you all see that. So, anyway, but Kim could be found at kimrahercom and she's got some great. She's got an assessment that you could take on there. She's got the ability to talk to her on there, so you need to read through it. She's got the ability to talk to her on there, so you need to read through it. She's got some resources, so definitely take a look at that. Are you active on any social?
Kim Rahir:platform. Yeah, you can find me on Facebook and on Instagram and I share like tips and tricks and thoughts, but also my weightlifting adventures and training, which can be hard in the summer months but because the championship is in September, you have to train through July and August, so I share stuff of that.
Brad Minus:I try to make it fun and entertaining too Excellent, and I will link both of those in the show notes as well, so you will have full access. If you want to talk to Kim, if you want to hire her, if you just want some advice, you can either slide into her DMs, contact her on her webpage and you could talk to Kim, because I think she's definitely someone that you will want to talk to. If you're thinking about either starting a strength training regimen or if you found that are stagnant, if you found yourself plateauing, I think she'll give you another viewpoint, and she's got a lot of them, so it's good. Anyway, tim, thank you so much for joining us here on Life Changing Challengers. I so appreciate you and I am looking forward to watching you continue to compete and take home a gold at some of these other competitions.
Kim Rahir:Thank you so much. I had a great time talking to you. You're a wonderful host.
Brad Minus:Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you so much and for anybody who's listening, we will see you in the next one.
