Episode 470: Zarina Del Mar: From Exercise Bulimia to Body Awareness That Actually Works

Former tax lawyer Zarina Del Mar was working out twice a day, seven days a week—running in the morning, gym sessions midday, and CrossFit at night. She was chasing an impossible body standard while fighting her genetic baseline, until she realized she couldn't feel her own body anymore. In this Fitness Friday episode, Zarina explains how one movement session changed everything. We dive into the psychology of obsessive exercise, why GLP-1s are creating more problems than they solve, and how understanding your body's construction can replace the need to count calories forever. Zarina Del Mar is a fitness personality who transitioned from practicing law to teaching body awareness and sustainable movement practices to women worldwide. What we discuss: Her "Exercise Bulimia" Phase: Two Workouts Daily for Years The GLP-1 Problem: Fighting Your Genetic Baseline How One Movement Session Changed Everything Why Detailed Instructions Matter More Than Exercise Type The Plank Revolution: Feeling Your Fingers and Feet From Calorie Counting to Balanced Plates Forever Why Most Gyms Don't Teach You to Feel Your Body Thank you to our sponsor: Momentous: Shop this link https://www.livemomentous.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorDUIZz3psr1Qsq_n1yE8_6JTq_QUFabOO9lH65HDEXCIoJOPLj and use code Jen for 20% off Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. Bio.me: Link to daily prebiotic fiber here https://bio.me/?utm_source=Jennifer, code Jennifer20 for 20% off. David: Buy 4, get the 5th free at davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle http://davidprotein.com/habitsandhustle. Find more from Zarina Del Mar: Website: https://www.whateva.club/ Instagram: @zarina_del_mar_world https://www.instagram.com/zarina_del_mar_world/?hl=en Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:30Jen Cohen?

  Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank our sponsor Momentous. When your goal is health span, living better and longer, there are very few non-negotiables. One of them, quality. And when it comes to supplements designed for high performers, nobody does it better than Momentous. Momentus goes all in on NSF certification, which means every single batch is tested for heavy metals, harmful additives, and label accuracy. And that's why they're trusted by all 32 NFL teams and top collegiate sports dietitians across the country. Here's the thing, they don't sell every supplement under the sun,

• 1:12Jen Cohen?

  because they believe in nailing the basics with rock solid consistency, and those basics are protein and creatine. Momentus sources Creapure, the purest form of creatine monohydrate available, an absolute must for both men and women who want peak physical and cognitive performance. So if you're serious about leveling up, go to livemomentous.com and use code GEN for 20% off. Just act now. Start today. GEN for 20% off. livemomentous.com.

• 1:53Jen Cohen?

  Today we have Zarina Delmar, who is a fitness personality, but was a tax lawyer, which is a crazy transition. We're going to get into it. But before that, we're going to do something with you because you are in the space of health and wellness. We're going to do a healthy shot. Are you ready?

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10Jen Cohen?

  All right. So we do these Magic Mind shots. They're full of adaptogens and all these good ingredients. And it kind of keeps us like very alert and focused. So as opposed to doing like a tequila shot, we do a healthy adaptogen shot, basically. Mine doesn't have caffeine though, or sugar. I think yours may. I don't know. But we go like this. We go like this.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Chin chin.

• 2:37Jen Cohen?

  Cheers. And then we just, down the hatch. I've been having so many of these. I'm only having half at a time. They taste really good. So you tell me what, after you finish it, or if you drink it. Did you try it?

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I tried it. I tried.

• 2:51Jen Cohen?

  If you like it or not. I mean, if you feel more alert, you tell me. Do you feel more alert? Yeah, did it work?

• 2:58Speaker 02

  It is fresh. I will tell you about my eating habits because I'm trying to get rid of any snacks. And I'm looking at how many included added sugars there are. Yeah, yeah, not calories, just added sugar.

• 3:11Jen Cohen?

  OK, I'm going to send you a bunch. So they just came out with this magic. It's no sugar and no caffeine. So I mean, I'm blind as a bat. These have like 15 calories. That's it. That one I might think, I think has like 50, five zero. But I mean, oh, wait, hold on a minute. So you're counting calories to that level?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I'm not counting calories. But I'm looking at the ingredients of the products I consume. And only one field, added sugar. I'm trying to get rid of any added sugar.

• 3:44Jen Cohen?

  Added sugar. OK, that makes more sense to me.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But I have never counted calories. I don't think that it is necessary because it's not about full life, about.

• 3:53Jen Cohen?

  Well, no, I want to. Listen, that's why you're here. We're going to hear about what your whole philosophy is. But yeah, I'm going to send you. Or I'm going to get them to Magic. Mind, will you please send Zarina, if you're listening, some sugar-free Magic Mind shots? Because they really do work and they are super healthy. I would not be like sitting here blabbing about it if I actually did not take, like I drink two a day and everybody who takes them says they're really good. So they also love them. But now enough with that ad. It wasn't even an ad. It just sounded like an ad. Okay, so then you are someone, are you very particular of like just sugar? Or what's your diet like? What's your diet?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  I prefer to call it eating style. Like I'm this sweet tooth girl. Maybe because I had a long, long history of trying different diets from my puberty. Because that was the time when I just realized I don't like my body image. I don't like my body composition because I have short limbs. I'm like one meter sixty one centimeters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, short legs. And I was looking at these models.

• 5:06Jen Cohen?

  Models, yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Having, having beautiful lawn and thin legs. So after trying a lot of diets, when I was around thirty, I realized that I cannot live this life. I cannot count calories, think about what I eat every day. That's why I'm just trying to be super balanced. We have, I have my plate, I have my protein, my fats, my complex carbohydrates, my veggies. And I'm just trying not to snack because I want to feel real hunger and feel fullness and be able to move freely. So it's, it's just, this is all about basics.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Of course, I eat cakes, I can eat cookies, I love cookies. But I eat them after I had my full and complex meal. And each meal is the same, like breakfast is the same as lunch and lunch is the same as dinner.

• 6:03Jen Cohen?

  And when you say that, you mean like each meal, you have the same breakdown, which is protein, complex carb, fat.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm trying, I'm trying to do it.

• 6:11Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so when you were younger, were you athletic? You said you had some body image issues, which I think every girl has to some level. And, you know, very rare, I mean, if they say they didn't, they're probably lying. Because I think there's a lot of different, like, we may not have, people may not have eating disorder, but there's a lot of disordered eating that's in our culture. And I actually think that the pendulum is swinging back to where we used to be, where everybody wants to be really skinny. And that's like, the Kate Moss look has become like, really popular again. Do you know what I mean? It used to be for-

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Like, I mean nowadays, it is coming back.

• 6:50Jen Cohen?

  It's coming back.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  The obsession about-

• 6:53Jen Cohen?

  The obsession with being thin. Because with all the GLP-1s and with just overall, it's not so much, like, there was this philosophy, actually, I wrote this book years ago, like, 10 years ago, called Strong Is the New Skinny.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:07Jen Cohen?

  And I believed that, like, the idea that, like, be, like, obtaining or trying to go for a goal, like, being strong is a much healthier goal than just being skinny. Because not everybody could be skinny, but everyone could be strong. And I feel like for the, for a while there, that was kind of like, kind of part of our, like, zeitgeist. And in the last couple of years, with all the GLP-1s, people are now focused on, like, who can be skinnier? Who, if I'm a size four, I want to be a size two. If I'm a size two, I want to be a size zero. Like, the pendulum now has gone and swung in a really unhealthy direction. That's what I've seen. Have you noticed that?

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's because of GLP-1. And I thought that it was common for us, like, I'm 39 years old, for, for my generation of ladies around 40 or 45. But then, I found that even ladies of 50 and 55, they remember they, that they were dieting and they were trying to be as skinny as it's possible. And what I say, I have 12 years old daughter. And now she's thinking about her waist to be-

• 8:21Speaker 02

  To be slim, her legs to be slim and long. And I'm just explaining to her that you were born in this body composition. Like I'm genetically, I have strong legs. And even if I don't squat, I have, I have strong legs. And my upper body is slimmer than my lower body. And that's, that's, uh, I was struggling. Yeah, yeah, that's my body type. And I have, and I have to, I have to accept it. And I will, uh, I, I had once in my life, I had very, very thin legs. When I was like four weeks pregnant and I wasn't able to eat anything for two weeks.

• 9:01Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  And I wasn't able to exercise. That was the skinniest, uh, the skinniest, um,

• 9:07Jen Cohen?

  You've ever been.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  form I have ever, I have ever been, yeah, I've ever had. So for, for all the ladies who were born like this, everything you can do just to keep moving and keep your, your muscle mass that, that, that is here above for you. Because for many ladies, it is so difficult to gain muscle. And for us who were born with, with this particular body type, it's easier.

• 9:29Jen Cohen?

  So I believe, to be honest, and I know this is controversial, but I believe that we all have a certain body type. And that you can only, you have a baseline and you can only manipulate it so much one way or the other until it gets to be unhealthy. I mean, people can say all they want, no, you can, you know, it's about this, it's about that. I'm a perfect example, right? Like I'm somebody who like, I'm more athletic by nature. Like I'm built, I'm not an ectomorph, you know, an ectomorph.

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, of course, endomorph.

• 9:57Jen Cohen?

  I'm a mesomorph.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 9:59Jen Cohen?

  And when I don't eat a lot, yeah, do I get skinnier? Yes, but do I, can I maintain that level of thinness in a healthy way? No, because my body will, will rebound back to where it's comfortable. Like you can, you can fight it five, 10 pounds. Unless I'm on a drug, like a GLP one, I'm not going to be staying 10, 15 pounds lighter than my baseline. So I think what's happening is people are fighting their baseline to such a point where it's so psychologically unhealthy, it's physically unhealthy. I think these. GLP-1s have been, I think it's like one of the worst things that's happened in this last couple of years. I don't care what you say is great, but there's a whole argument like, oh, it's great for inflammation.

• 10:42Jen Cohen?

  You know, it's great for perimenopause, it's great for microdosing, it's great for brain health. I want to see the data in 10 years from now because nobody knows right now. If you're a diabetic and you're 150 pounds overweight, God bless you, go on GLP-1s. If you're somebody who is a healthy person and like maybe 20 pounds too heavy for your body type, go and die, like go walking every day, you know, clock your, clock and watch your diet. Like you don't need to be on a GLP-1. Because once you get on it, once you get on them, in my opinion, what I've seen is it's really hard to get off.

• 11:18Speaker 02

  Uh, because uh, when you're on it, yeah, sorry, you, you don't, you don't, uh, I see it within my community. Like you don't change your lifestyle.

• 11:26Jen Cohen?

  You're not, it's not behavioral change.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:28Jen Cohen?

  So like unless you're doing things to change your behavior and make it, you know, it's all about like habits, right? Like creating these like these tiny habits that will make you behave different day after day, right? If you're just relying on a shot once a week where you're just not hungry anymore, right? And your appetite is now suppressed. Once you're off of that, your appetite comes back with a vengeance. I've seen this with friends of mine. So when they try to get off their appetite, and even when they try to titrate off, you know, they start to like make their doses lower. But they're still super hungry and like now they're having less muscle mass. They have more, because you lose muscle in addition to fat. And now they have less muscle mass, now they have only have more fat on their body.

• 12:13Jen Cohen?

  And now when they go back to eating like a regular person, they're gaining weight. Because all of the metabolism's all wonky.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  That's why I just started my movement journey. I was fighting with the baseline, uh, how you describe it. And I realized that I cannot leave this lifestyle.

• 12:32Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Having two training sessions per day, uh, seven times per week.

• 12:37Jen Cohen?

  You were doing this?

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was doing this.

• 12:39Jen Cohen?

  Tell me what you were doing.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  I was trying to be as slim as possible, but keep my muscle mass.

• 12:43Jen Cohen?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  And.

• 12:44Jen Cohen?

  What kind of training were you doing?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  So it was gym, CrossFit studio and um, I was running. So I was running in the morning, then I came to the gym, then in the evening I was doing my CrossFit sessions. Because I, I, I am like, let's say, type A personality, uh, I'll all or nothing. And, and I'm physically prepared for a, like a CrossFit type of training. And then I realized that it's, it's not healthy. Uh, I'm not an elite athlete and I don't have this regimen when I can sleep, eat. I don't have like my performance coach, my massage therapist. And I just, I didn't feel my body. It was like, not I'm dying, but I did, uh, I didn't feel comfortable.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  And I was looking for something. That's how I found all this uh, story about movement. About uh, being soft and, and flexible and feel these true motions in your body. Not just repeating the same stuff as fast as you can.

• 13:47Jen Cohen?

  Repetitive.

• 13:47Speaker 02

  As hard as you can, yeah, repetitive. And I didn't feel anything while I was doing these crunches or burpees. We made like hundreds of burpees per minute, per five minutes.

• 13:58Jen Cohen?

  Were you getting injured a lot too?

• 14:00Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 14:01Jen Cohen?

  Because all, what you're, what you're saying though is, it's funny, sounds familiar. Like, I think a lot of this, what you're saying is you were like an exercise Bulimia in a way. Like you were just exercising yourself to death. And like typically what happens is you just end up with a ton of injuries. You know, like I was similar, like I worked out a lot, like a lot. And it wasn't even so much for the physicality. It was because it was good, like my brain was getting much, like it was distracting me from things I didn't want to like think about. Or it like turned on like my dopamine and my serotonin. But everything has like a, like a breaking point, right? Like you can overdo everything, right? Like, I love to run because of the cardio. But like, I can run for forty minutes. I don't, or thirty minutes.

• 14:46Jen Cohen?

  I don't have to run for like an hour and a half, right? But like, to me, that's like, that's also, again, like, that's a super unhealthy mechanism. How do you tell your people? How did you? It was a good example. You're an example. How did you go from being so obsessive? Like an obsessive exerciser? How did you get back into a moderate place where it's much more doable and manageable? Because psychological element is so hard.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's hard. And maybe I got more knowledge about the construction of our body, about anatomy and biomechanics. And I've just noticed that I don't even, I don't even get sweat. But I feel how my muscles are working when I'm doing, let's say, mobility. Or when I'm doing this mindful movement sequences, mindful movement flow. And once you get knowledge about your body, you feel this confidence. And you understand why softness is new strength. Because for me, it was so difficult to make the motions, to think about the motion, to think about

• 15:55Speaker 02

  the position of my pelvis, the position of different parts of my spine.

• 15:59Jen Cohen?

  But how did you do that? Because if someone's listening to this podcast and they're like, they're an obsessive exerciser because they're trying to burn as many calories as possible. How can, what do you tell people, the clients, your followers? Like, how they can get out of that hamster wheel into a more healthy, safe place where they can stop exercising like that? And recognizing like they're actually like doing more harm than good to a place that's more like normal, that's not so insane?

• 16:29Speaker 02

  I see. Just try one session. I remembered, I tried one session with one movement guy and I felt something.

• 16:36Jen Cohen?

  So you changed the type of workout you were doing?

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, just one session. And in, and he Explain me detailed instructions. That's why what distinguishes me from all the fitness world is just detailed instruction. I am explaining how to move. And that was one session. And I felt something, I didn't have enough vocabulary to describe for myself what happened. But I felt really good. And we were moving slowly. He just explained me all this anatomical stuff very shortly. How I need to control the tension. How I can move like my pelvis, that there are lots of movement in my hip joints.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  And it helped me, just the words, not even particular crazy or interesting movements or exercises. Just the explanation. And at that time, I didn't have, I didn't read any books on anatomy or biomechanics. I didn't know what is happening in your joints, etc. So he just explained me that you are the main controller of everything what is happening. So it is, it is like self-perception. You understand more if you have this knowledge. I didn't have them. Nobody, nobody explained me, even at the gym. It was just pull up, push up, deadlift, squat. And nobody explained me that in order to make, for example, the plank position, you need to feel your fingers on the surface.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Because this is how you engage your shoulders, your shoulder blades, how you protect your shoulder joints. And the same with your feet. Feel the surface, feel the grounding. And there are a lot of like these small tips that help you to create this presence in your body. This is the main, the main thing that I'm teaching and I'm presenting. Not the movement, because many of, many of my subscribers and many people think that, give me one particular exercise to fix my knee problem, my lumbar spine problem. I need one particular exercise, but it's not about exercise. It's about how you feel it, how you control the motion. And what do you understand about your body?

• 18:45Speaker 02

  What's happening with your joints when you do any, any movement, any exercise, call it. We just, we just forgot. And we, we just forgot how to feel comfortable and confident.