Hey friends, welcome to the old fashioned on-purpose podcast. I am extremely excited for today's topic.

I have Ashley Van Hooten, the muscle maven with me today, and I think this topic is going to be

really good, really juicy. So Ashley, welcome. I'm so excited to have you.

Thanks Jill. I am very pumped to be here. No pun intended. Yes, it will be juicy. As juicy as we can

get it. All the juice. So let's start off. Give everybody a little background on you.

Okay, I will try to be as succinct as possible. I am a podcast host. I'm a cookbook author. I'm a

health coach. I have been in love with learning about nutrition and fitness for as long as I can

remember. Even in childhood, I was kind of obsessed with muscles and strength and people being

strong. And it wasn't until probably post university, you know, people hit like they're sort of

mid-twenties and they realized that you can't do the things that you could do when you were 19, I guess,

as far as the way you eat and take care of yourself. And so as I started learning how to take care

of myself and what was best for my body, that was kind of coinciding with some of the work that I was

doing, which was, you know, writing. I was a journalist for health publications. That led to

having my own podcast. And yeah, I mean, it just kind of, it was all just sort of a natural

progression of the things that I was good at, which was communicating and learning from people

and sharing what I've learned with others. And the topics that I was passionate about, which were

learning about food, learning about the types of movements and foods that our bodies naturally crave.

And how to try to fit that into a modern world that doesn't always support the things that our

bodies want, which I think you're you're very familiar with with the work that you do. So

absolutely. Yes. And so I'm curious, did what kind of came first? Was it, I know you have an

interest in food and you've you've written one cookbook, the one I really want to focus on today,

it takes guts. And then you have another one coming out, you're pretty quick, right?

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