Social Media Is Blinding Us To Fitness Realities With Sophie Sanguedolce

 

The digital space contains enough information to make our heads explode. From 5-minute crafts and fun facts or quick tips you encounter as you scroll through your feed, it’s easy to accept the information as we scroll. But, when it comes to fitness and caring for your body, it is so important to sort through the bullshit, and quickly at that. Sophie Sanguedolce is a fitness, health, body confidence, and self-love influencer on TikTok and Instagram. Having a social media platform isn’t the joyride many people think it is, especially with content that deals with issues regarding health and body image. Sophie uses hers to dispel myths and empower her audience to be physically and mentally healthy, away from shady weight loss gimmicks. Sophie is on a mission to expose these myths and explains how to be more selective when it comes to following fitness influencers and steer clear of weight-loss fads. She and I both are self-love stans, so we touch on our own experiences with body image, as well as dealing with negativity in the digital space.

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Social Media Is Blinding Us To Fitness Realities With Sophie Sanguedolce

I am so glad that you are with us. I have got my friend, Sophie Sanguedolce. She is joining us all the way from San Diego, California. She is a body positivity and fitness influencer. I love her style because she truly gets it. She sends the message across that it’s okay to love your body and to give yourself a pat on the back. I love her sweet disposition. We talked about a lot of subjects during this episode.

One of those is dealing with internet trolls, dealing with posting your body and being vulnerable, dealing with your body image, how to handle that and what’s right for you. We talked about juggling, being a content creator with corporate life. We talked about the pitfalls of fitness influencers on all social platforms and how they possibly might be poisoning the internet. Without further ado, let’s get right into it. Let’s welcome Sophie Sanguedolce to the show. Enjoy.

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I have a sweet friend with me on the show. I would like to welcome Sophie Sanguedolce to the show. How are you?

Good.

Sophie and I met on Instagram. I loved her content and instantly fell in love with her. She’s got the sweetest personality. Your content resonates with a lot of women because you put workouts out there that are both functional and easy to replicate. Say, in your home, you don’t necessarily have to have a lot of equipment. It’s easy to follow and you give clear instructions. You have a beautiful body but you are not so body-focused. You are more focused on the form and also the functionality of whatever it is you are talking about. Tell me a little bit about how you’ve got started in fitness specifically, and then how you translated that to your content online.

It’s funny, I talked to my parents. I was going through a bit of a rough patch in the middle of quarantine and I lost my happiness. I called my parents and said, “When I was a toddler and my purest form of a human being with no worries of judgment or anything, what made me happy?” The number one thing they said was exercise and moving your body. I had so much energy. I was always stretching and trying to move my body. It’s true, I have always been an active person.

When I was a kid, I was always into sports and stuff. When I was old enough to get into a gym, I was immediately in. This is always my favorite thing. One of my good friends in middle school, her dad is a big MMA fighter and he made a gym. I went there when I was not old enough to be in a gym yet and went to town. I loved the idea of being physically strong because I have always been a short, small human being.

How tall are you?

I’m 5’2.75”

The 0.75” is important.

It makes a difference. I can’t say 5’3” but I’m almost there.

I’m 5’5.5”. I have to specify there’s 0.5”, so I understand.

Put yourself some height.

How did you translate that into online content? Did you decide in 2020 when you spoke with your parents, “Let me put this online?” Did you get back into the gym more heavily? What happened?

My fitness and health journey was rocky. I was into it as a kid. When I was in high school, I was doing double days. I would go on the StairMaster until it stopped. I went for one hour and I would keep going. To be honest, my motive for exercising was totally different than it is now. It was more negatively. I formed this difficult, weird relationship with fitness and working out. I was into dance so I chose dance as my version of moving my body for a while. Halfway through college, I started heavily going to the gym again. It’s a 5:30 AM, 6:30 AM session. Break of dawn, I was getting up when the door was opened.

You are wild.

I had a whole crew that did it with me. Honestly, gym buddies change the game.

In college, I will be honest with you, at 5:30 AM I was 100% still drunk from the night before.

On weekends, I was not doing this. I had five corndogs the night before. This was not on weekends, don’t you worry. I would have passed away. I’ve got back into it then. When I graduated college, I stayed decently consistent but I was working so hard on my first job out of college. I was the first person in and the last person out. By the time it came for me to go to the gym, I did not have the energy at all. That’s when it hit the backburner. When quarantine happened, that’s when I was like, “I have so much time.” I was going to the gym before work at my company’s office but I wasn’t working out like I wanted to. I was just going and moving my body.

Gym buddies change the game. Click To Tweet

When quarantine happened, I was like, “This is my chance. I have so much free time. I’m not commuting two hours to and from work. I can do this.” I’ve got back into eating well and into finding workouts that were fun for me. Not the ones where I was like, “I have to do this to see the progress,” which you don’t have to do just one thing. I’ve got a coach that was super helpful with my schedule so I wouldn’t make excuses and not get around to it. I made my fitness Instagram the week that I finished my coaching and did at-home workouts and took it from there.

It hasn’t even been that long.

I hit a year in June 2020 of having my account.

First of all, congratulations because you have grown it so well. You are doing stuff that I don’t even see creators that have been at it for five years, engaging the way that you do, replying to every comment, being consistent with your posting, and keeping up with all of the algorithm changes. You are doing all of those things. How do you actively stay on top of those things? Do you sit there and scroll for hours or do you read about it online? How do you keep current?

It’s hard because, with my corporate job, I’m working twelve-plus hours every single day just on that. It gets difficult. Usually what I do is I wake up extra early, 5:00 AM or 5:30 AM if I can get my butt out of bed. While I’m having my coffee and stuff, I will do my gratitude manifestations and all that. I will take the time to go on Instagram and scroll. I will go through the hashtags that I use. I will mainly go through people who have tagged me in their stuff. With the comments throughout the day, I have to try and get to it.

You put out two excellent posts so you’ve got a lot of comments to go through.

There are lots of stuff to go through. That’s for sure. I get so excited when I get comments and stuff. Any break that I get, I’m like, “I need to go try and do it, too. Got to support other girls.” It’s good spending breaks. Right when I wake up, and then right before bed, I would scroll down and try to read some trends. The algorithm is changing every day. I don’t know what’s going on.

It’s so hard. I see my engagement sometimes, where even my Story views, I have 1,700 Story views, and then it’s 500. I’m like, “What happened here? What’s happening?” It’s so strange. Same thing with my likes. Sometimes I will get a post that’s 2,000, and then another post will get 348. I’m like, “Is Instagram okay?”

I checked my insights on the workout I posted. They’ve only got out to 1,100 people the whole day.

That’s so odd and it was a great post.

Instagram is hard stuff to figure out.

TikTok is such a great tool but on the other hand, it is also difficult because even if you are putting out content consistently, you don’t always hit the lottery. I have been putting out content on there. Granted, I took a six months break. Even when you are putting out content consistently, maybe at most 4,000 views is on the very high end. It’s typically around 200 to 300 for me. I haven’t quite cracked the code.

It’s an excellent tool and with the right content, you can take off. We know this because of music artists that have gotten record deals just from singing on TikTok. People getting extra famous like Addison Rae. We didn’t know who she was before TikTok and now, she’s one of the most famous people on the planet. It’s crazy.

Speaking of TikTok, not that I have cracked the code by any means but I started posting more consistently. I noticed before, I would get out to 200 people and I was like, “I don’t understand how anyone is blowing up on TikTok.” I noticed that you have to catch trends early. We have started implementing that and I have had two videos. One is at 1.5 million and one is at a million views. I have gotten a little bit higher. I went from 1,000 and now I’m at 18,500 followers.

That’s crazy. I need to look for you because I don’t think I follow you there, which is weird.

I don’t think I have you there.

I don’t interact as much. I scroll for ideas. I have found guests for the show on TikTok. I don’t sit around and interact with a whole bunch. Sometimes I will find an account that makes me giggle and cackle myself to death where I’m in tears. I will scroll through that for hours. Mostly, I’m looking for ideas for the show, if I’m honest.

I do, too. The thing that makes me nervous is I never comment on TikTok because if you are friends with anybody and they see that TikTok as well, you will come to the very top. Not that I’m not worried about embarrassing myself but I don’t want to comment.

If it’s a thirst trap in TikTok and you comment a heart eye emoji or whatever and someone screenshots it, then sends it to your boyfriend. I would die just for clout. Some of them are fine. I can’t lie.

 

They are well-crafted humans.

I feel like a cougar because I’m looking at these twenty-year-old boys and I’m like, “He can get it.” I’m like, “I’m old. That’s disgusting. What’s wrong with me?”

What’s confusing me is that I used to talk, even with girls, too. They will look like they are in their mid-20s and they are 16.  What’s going on? I looked my age then. I didn’t know how to do makeup. I didn’t have anything in this area.

I was awkward as hell. I have one eyebrow. My hair was frizzy. It wasn’t cute.

Did I ever say about my boy haircut?

No. What boy haircut?

Think of Audrey Hepburn. I had that for five years.

I can’t picture it at all. I’m not picturing it. I do want to see it.

This will be fun. I love exposing myself. This is the story. I was in second grade. I had a teacher I admired so much. She was the coolest human on Earth. She had a pixie cut. In second grade, you are so far prepubescent. You couldn’t be doing that quite yet. I was still a girly girl but I wanted this haircut. I was like, “That is so badass.” I’m trying to debate If I want to show you the cute ones and the bad ones.

Either, I want to see both.

It’s a medium embarrassment. I kept it from 2nd grade until the end of 7th grade. My family moved so I was the new kid showing up looking exciting.

I was mistaken for a boy all the time. In PE, we wore the same shirt and shorts. I cannot tell you how many times guys come from behind like, “Hey, Sean.” When I turn, they were like, “I’m so sorry.” I was like, “Can you guys come?” Which they never even did. I’m like, “Hello.”

They are beautiful. They are perfect. Don’t worry. My sister had a similar cut to yours. Sweet thing, she had one eye that was stronger than another. She had to use a patch on one eye. She had the cut and the patch, and she didn’t develop early as I did. She would be like, “Where’s the bathroom?” They would point her to the boy’s restroom. She was destroyed, poor thing, poor love. I know I’m exposing her too but she’s gorgeous and so womanly now. She’s got two beautiful children. That was a long time ago but she had the same haircut as you.

I always look back on those times when I was like, “Did I feel crushed at the moment?” The bullying that came from that when I was a kid made me to a woman. I don’t care.

Speaking of that, do you ever get negative comments on your stuff?

Yes. I went live on TikTok during my lunch for five minutes. I’ve got a new perfume and I was doing a little tester. Not the YSL. It is Chef’s Kiss. I was live and there were 40 people on it. It was not a big deal. I was doing a Q&A and people were talking and asking questions. Someone goes, “She’s so boring. She’s just another wannabe Addison Rae.” I was like, “Am I boring? That’s so mean.”

First of all, you are not doing what Addison is doing. Secondly, you are not boring. If they are bored, there’s a little X and you just click out. That’s what you need to do.

I literally said like, “You don’t have to be here.”

No one is holding you hostage here. You are welcome to leave.

Ask yourself in the shoes of somebody who’s following you, what are they getting from this? Click To Tweet

Do you know when Reels blow up or it gets to the most random internet trolls? It was the first one that decently did well when Reels were first coming out. It was this one where I was talking about wearing a sports bra kind of a thing. The number of men in my comments, I remember I screenshotted a lot of them and I exposed these people. I put in my Stories ten of the worst comments.

The one that stuck with me that shakes me to my core. Keep in mind, he had a picture with his girlfriend, wife or something in his profile picture. He said something like, “When you dress like that, you obviously know that a consequence is going to happen to you. You are going to be attacked or someone is going to try and do something.” It shook me to my core. I responded and I was like, “Whoever that girl is in your photo, I am hoping she is okay. You are a terrifying human.”

That’s triggering. I have a lot of things to say about that. I’m going to tell you that that’s horrible. I’m about to ask you for his account so I can go report him to the FBI. I’ve got to go ham on this motherfucker. Honestly, for my whole life, I have been ripped apart about my body. That’s why I post a lot of the body positivity stuff. Also, by exposing myself by saying, “I used to Photoshop myself all the time.” That’s not to say there’s a part of my shirt that’s sticking out and making me look weird. I don’t Photoshop that. That’s different.

I’m talking about when you are completely altering your body that it looks like this and you have made it to this, that’s not okay. That’s what I was doing because I have never been naturally thin. I have always been chubby since I was a kid. It took a long time for me to get comfortable with people making comments about my body. I have always had boobs, a big ass, and big hips. Men in their twenties were hitting on me when I was thirteen. They had no idea that I was thirteen. I had my first kiss when I was 13 and the guy was 24, and he had no clue. I didn’t tell him.

At the time, nobody was educating people about child molestation. I was excited that a guy wanted to kiss me. We were in Europe, so I will excuse it. I’m like, “He’s French. It’s fine. No big deal.” I was uneducated that it wasn’t right for a 13-year-old to kiss a 24-year-old. I didn’t know. It was so long ago, before the internet, before Facebook or anything.

The comments that used to get to me are, “You are fat. You need to work on your body.” I have put a filter on my Instagram comments that take away the ability of anybody to comment something negative about my body saying like fat or pig, or pig in Italian because people do that. Anything related to a negative connotation for my body.

That is not only to protect me but it’s to also protect the other people who might be triggered by a comment like that in seeing my content. One time, someone got around it and they commented on that. I was wearing a long-sleeve brown shirt and I’m posed off to the side. They said, “Your body is not sexy. You need to do cardio.” Something like that. I blocked him immediately. I was like, “Why do you take time out of your day to comment?” It doesn’t make sense to me.

It probably never will because I will never think that way. It’s either someone who’s incredibly unhappy with themselves and sitting there wanting to bring misery to you because they are miserable or it’s a troll 1 of the 2. It doesn’t bother me anymore but in 2019, I could safely tell you that I would probably have cried.

I remember I saw your post that you did. That wasn’t that long ago. We were talking about the comments. It’s frustrating because the internet is a powerful place to spread good information and help others. Every time I have gotten a comment like that or something that’s negative and inappropriate, I would sit back, and try and ask myself that question, “What is it?” I usually come up with the two things that you said. I still can’t wrap my head around why somebody would want to say that to somebody else. I always try to think of that person physically holding their phone, typing that out, and going afterward and being like, “Yes.”

“I’ve got her.”

What does that give you? I will never understand that. Truly, the main finger you can point is that people who are severely unhappy, not in the world and get off of spreading negativity.

A big turning point for me and you can probably relate to this is I started creating content for others and not for me. I took the focus off of validation for me and I want it to be education and positivity for other people. I don’t know if you can relate to that.

When I first started posting, I didn’t think anyone was going to see it anyway. It was just for progress. When I started getting out to more people, it became more around like, “I need to take another picture. My stomach, you can see it.” I realized and I was like, “My Stories aren’t adding up. I’m telling people to put their bodies to be healthy and accept themselves but here I am.”

Worried about my little belly bulge or whatever it is.

I’m like, “By the way, it’s for your organs.” That’s awesome.

“By the way, that’s your uterus. I don’t know if you know.”

My father had a huge slap in the face. I was like, “Time to fix that and get over it.” Sometimes if I haven’t posted for the day and I want to keep up with the algorithm and I need to get something out there, there have been moments where I posted a photo that I posted before because I don’t have time to take a new one, “Let’s put a caption to say something.” I will look back and ask myself, “ln the shoes of somebody who’s following me, what are they getting from this?” This serves no purpose. It’s just to beat the stupid algorithm. I did shift. If I don’t have anything to post that’s helpful, I’m not going to post.

I’m working with someone out of LA who is helping me when I’m posting, not for the algorithm but in general, he’s like, “You don’t need to post every day, Stephanie. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about quality. Make your audience wait a little bit. Fuck the algorithm. That will come. It’s the quality of what you are posting. Hit me up between 7:00 PM and 7:30 PM. We will discuss what you need to post.” I have hired him to help me with that because I was all over the place before and I didn’t have a pattern. I wasn’t classifying my posts like, “Is this a lifestyle post? Is this a fitness post? Is this a body positivity post?” Classifying them has helped me.

That’s true because I changed my name, Sophie Dolce Fitness. When I changed it, people noticed it as a fitness account when you see it. Also, I was like, “I want to do more stuff about life. It doesn’t have to be fitness.” You are not supposed to have a specific niche but, in my opinion, why limit yourself? You can help people in an array of different forms. Just because someone is following you for fitness doesn’t mean you can’t help them with self-love and manifestation.

 

If your everyday job was working out in a gym, that would be different but because you have a lot of stuff going on in your life, that’s valid.

On the other hand, I’m one of those people that never had a passion or saw myself doing anything, which was concerning when I was a senior in college because I was going to apply to colleges. I called my parents crying. I was like, “I’m going to die at a young age. I can’t picture anything for myself.” Looking back, I’m like, “Sophie, you will find your thing.” It was traumatic. Now I feel like I have found it. I always said this since I was a kid, I was always the person helping others, trying to make other people feel included. “Now I feel like I’m helping people,” and that is giving me so much more purpose in life than ever that I feel more driven than ever to make this more of than I can get there.

You will get there for sure. It’s important. You are so young that you have time to do that. You have the time to build a solid foundation, and then you can invest more in your own business and get away from corporate life if that’s what you want to do.

It would be so nice to have a little expert like what you have, to tell you everything.

It’s expensive because he’s also helping me with getting press out there about me because that helps you get verified. I know that having a show and being verified is important. When people will look at my account, they might like me but they will be like, “Is she an expert? Why should I listen to her?” All of a sudden, you see a blue tick and you are like, “She’s an expert, 100%.” It’s all about perception but it’s important. That’s why I made the investment. I talked to my parents, too. I was like, “This is a lot of money. Do you think this is a good investment?” They were like, “We do think so.” I was like, “I will nod it out for at least two months.” That’s okay.

It’s so worth it. It’s investing in yourself. It’s not on the same scale at all but a lot of people are nervous to go to therapy. Invest in yourself. Invest in your future, invest in your company. This is your career. This is super important.

A lot of us have that failure-to-launch thing going on.

Did you hear about the book I’m reading?

No.

It’s called Think and Grow Rich. It gives you the kick in the butt that you need to run straight forward for exactly what you want in life.

Who’s the author?

Napoleon Hill. It’s an old book. The reason I even started reading it was I want to push for what I want to do. There are so many societal pressures that make me feel that I can’t, I shouldn’t or it’s too risky. You don’t ever want to live life settling. I don’t want to turn 60 years old, look back and be like, “Why didn’t you do that? You had a chance to be happy to your core and have a way better mental health.” I’ve got this book because I saw a documentary. All the most successful people in the US used these ideas in the past. They have been reading this book multiple times a year and it has given them all the tools that they need to drive their own business forward or follow their passion, which I like.

I remember you were having some personal stuff going on. You were like, “I’m sorry I’m not posting.” I was like, “How can I support you? How can I be there for you?” Of course, you give your friends their space. How did you pull yourself out of that?

I honestly would say that sounds so goofy and cliché. I had people messaging me saying, “Are you okay? What’s going on? We miss your workouts. We miss your daily positivity. I feel like we are on FaceTime on your Stories. We don’t have that. Where are your tips?” Not that it guilt-tripped me into it but I was like, “This does bring me a lot of joy. I’m going through a hard time.” I gave myself a week off of posting and being on there. It was like, “I miss seeing everyone. It feels like a big, massive family.”

It was the idea that when I didn’t feel I was helping somebody, inspiring them or influencing them to better their lives and that it halted, I realized, “Maybe during this time, although it’s hard, I can let people know that I’m going through it that they know I’m not going to be my 100% happy self but I can still get joy from what I’m doing and don’t have to fake it.”

Sometimes you have to take those days. There was a time where I deleted Instagram off my phone for two months. People were messaging my best friend. My best friend has three million followers. She was receiving messages and she was screenshotting her request box and sending them to me. They were like, “Is Stephanie okay?” She was like, “People think you are dead. You need to get back on.” The first post that I put when I came back was “Not dead. Just living.” I truly took that time to be away and collect my thoughts, and then came back stronger. Sometimes you have to take a break. Now I can’t because of the show.

Before I’ve got into having social media that I cared about and was trying to turn into something, I always would look at influencers and stuff for anyone large and be like, “How nice. They are taking a minute out of their day to post. How hard.” Once you are in it, it is draining and hard. It is fun but I never expected the amount of work that you have to put into it. It’s daunting the idea of being like, “Amongst all this other stuff I’m juggling, amongst my life, you don’t get that many breaks from it. If you do, Instagram punishes you for it.” It’s difficult and there is a lot of pressure I feel. I love what your caption was of just living.

I was in Vegas with my family. I was hanging out with one of my guy friends from UNLV. He took this picture of me. We were staying at the Wynn. It’s me on the bed, chilling out, watching TV, and that was the caption. Side note, I was still working a corporate job at the time. A lot of my burnout was that. I have to tell you, you trade that 9:00 to 5:00 for 24/7. When you go into this creator space, you are working twelve hours a day.

I’m working for 14 to 16 hours a day because I’m constantly doing this. I’m like, “I’ve got to email this and I do this.” It’s not like I’m scrolling or whatever all the time. Sometimes, “I’ve got to listen to this podcast. I’ve got to listen to this person’s course on feminine energy. I’ve got to go through my email,” all different kinds of stuff. You are aware that it’s a full-time job. No guarantees, no guaranteed pay.

Invest in yourself, your future, and your company. This is your career and this is super important. Click To Tweet

That’s why it feels so risky and scary to jump. I have a question for you. What would you say was the biggest pro of leaving corporate life? I can’t tell you how many people I have talked to that are like, “I want to start doing this. I want to leave corporate life.” It’s such a trend now. What would you say was the biggest push to make you do it? That is the hardest step and most people don’t. Are you happy about it?

Absolutely. I was in corporate hospitality. I did private event sales for an upscale steakhouse here in Houston. It’s famous. A lot of people go there. It has amazing food. It’s hugely corporately owned by the Fertitta family. They own most of California, Nevada, Texas and also Louisiana. They are everywhere. They used to own part of the UFC. They owned so many hotels and restaurants. You are working your ass off for someone who doesn’t know shit about you. If you do great and you meet your sales call, nobody is giving you a pat on the back. Nobody is saying, “You helped my life. You changed my life. You changed my perspective on things.”

No one even says, “Thank you for planning a good event,” ever. Not that I need that validation but it’s nice to hear some feedback about your work, any feedback at all. All there was always negative. They used to say, “You need to go drive around and drop off these sales kits.” I would then submit an expense report logically with the mileage that I spent driving around. My boss was like, “Why are you submitting this?” I’m like, “It’s because I used my card and drive around to drop off sales kits.” He’s like, “It’s in a 5-mile radius.” I’m like, “I drove five hours doing that all day.”

Whatever it is, it’s like you are not appreciated. It’s the same thing every day. First of all, it was a closet. It wasn’t even an office. I had the roof hatch over my head so if it rain, it would rain on my head. I was underneath the ladder. Every time I move my chair, I would bump into the ladder. The environment was horrible. If you miss a day of work, it was like the Spanish Inquisition. Doctors know what you have. I ended up just saying, “Fuck it.” I would go to work and I put a mask on. This is before COVID. People were like, “Why is she in a mask? Does she have the Ebola virus or something?” It’s so funny because it was in December that I had gotten so sick. I wore a mask to work, and then two months later, COVID was happening. I thought I might have had COVID during that time.

We don’t see you in December.

The push that I experienced was when I’ve got laid off. I’ve got furloughed at first. I was in quarantine because I was in Egypt on vacation when COVID hit. I had to come back early quarantine. By the time my quarantine was about to be up, they furloughed me. Later on, in July 2020, they were like, “There’s no business. We can’t have people gather so there’s nothing for you to do.”

They kept on my colleague because she was hourly and I was salary. Naturally, they cut the bigger salary. That was the push that I had originally. I was like, “I want to go into business for myself.” I had this failure to launch. I had all the tools and all the equipment to do the show. I had a brand new Mac computer and all that stuff but I still had this failure to launch.

I had to check myself, pull myself together, get organized, and get my mental health right because I was in a shitty relationship where I wasn’t being supported, encouraged or anything. It was looked upon as shitty because I was at home, not at a physical place by him. I had to get out of that relationship and make sure you surround yourself with supportive people

The biggest pro is helping other people. The validation that I receive is not physical. It’s in my heart because I’m receiving these messages. “This resonated with me. I want you to know that I took a picture in this bikini because of you.” Stuff like that makes me want to cry. I’m like, “You have the confidence to go take a picture in a bikini from me? That makes me so happy.”

I don’t blame you. One of my TikToks that blew up was about self-love and treating yourself like somebody that you love and ask the question, “Do you do that?” There are a couple of thousands of comments. I was trying to go through them and get to people and I was crying my eyes out. I was sending them all to my parents and it was clicking for so many people that they had not been attributing themselves well. I feel like we need these reminders. Once you realize that you have made a difference in somebody’s life, they don’t realize what that comment did to you. It changes and shapes your life as a human.

Sophie Dolce?

My username is taken so I had to put a period in between.

I had that Musical.ly app that I posted two things of me lip-syncing a long time ago. That’s Stephanie Joplin and I can’t get into it to change it and take it away. Now, I’m @RealStephanieJoplin because I couldn’t use Stephanie Joplin.

Did you contact support?

I sure did. You can imagine it’s taking a while for them to respond at all.

It’s so annoying.

I’m like, “Can I talk to a person?”

Never ever. For anyone that gets their Instagrams hacked or anything, I had a girl who had around 10,100 followers and it was hacked and you can’t talk to anybody.

I would die. There’s one girl I follow. I’m sure you have seen her stuff. Her name is Drew. She completely tears these misogynistic men into a new A-hole.

 

Blonde hair?

Yes. I saw on her Instagram that she hit a million and she lost access to her TikTok. They banned her from her TikTok and she was like, “I’m going to die if something doesn’t happen.” She was like, “Can you please write TikTok an email and tell them what my account means to you.” She was pleading with people because a lot of people who have a couple million on TikTok might have 50,000 on Instagram. They don’t have maybe as many. You can imagine if she didn’t have that many on Instagram, what would she do? She was able to get it back thankfully. Her content is so funny. It’s good.

She’s amazing. Everyone’s worst nightmare is more of that happening. You spend so much time. Not to mention all of your content is gone forever. I don’t save mine.

I don’t either. I was glad for her that she got hers back. I was like, “I can’t imagine having a million and losing your account.”

I would love to have a million. I would love to not lose it.

Of course but that makes you want to jump off a cliff.

That’s heartbreaking.

What is your goal? Keeping in mind monetary, you want to monetize. Those are the typical goals. Let’s take your Instagram, for example. What do you see for the future of your Instagram account?

It’s a hard question to answer because I never thought that I would be as into it as I am.

You’ve got to think about it.

Honestly, the whole goal behind all this is to influence and help as many people as possible. That is literally it. Along the way, if I can influence as many as I influence now and that’s all I can do, then I did my job. It is to expand it and help more people, help things click for them with self-love, help them accept themselves as a human being and their bodies. Also, not be so critical and not view fitness or food as something that’s a punishment and enjoy it.

You’ve got to flip your mentality towards food and fitness. You’ve got to do that.

One of my goals is to get enough people to trump these terrible fads, quick fixes, waist trainers, fat-burning pills, and all this stuff that’s rotting the internet.

It’s poisoning. I thought you are right. I thought of this girl, she’s a fitness influencer. She’s like, “What I eat in a day is intuitive eating.” I was like, “Intuitive eating, I’m into that.” I watched it and it’s hardly any protein and mostly complex carbohydrates.” She’s naturally skinny. She could probably get away with it for now but by the time she’s 30, she will have diabetes if she continues eating that way.

I sent it to my friend who is an intuitive eater, a certified nutritionist. She was like, “I hate this. It’s so frustrating. It doesn’t even matter if I say anything to her because she’s not going to listen.” It was just oatmeal for breakfast, and then a big ciabatta sandwich with a huge chunk of bread, a little piece of chicken and a side salad. It was popcorn and then there were grapes. It was almost like all carbs. I was like, “What is happening?”

Carbs are totally fine. What happened to whole plant-based foods or your protein? Nobody eats vegetables anymore. You can make them fun, I will show you. What I eat in a day can be toxic.

People need to understand that you need a balance of fats, proteins and carbs. That’s your little triangle and you need to stay in that little triangle. They need to have a certain ratio. If you want to have a plate of pasta, have a plate of pasta. Eat it with 1 or 2 eggs or have some chicken with it so it’s not going to spike your insulin.

People don’t have that knowledge. That’s why I have people like my friend Nicola that I was telling you about. I had her on the show. I want to educate people because they don’t know and I didn’t know. I never used to know that. I was like, “I will have pasta and I will have it with pesto sauce so it’s more healthy.”

More basil for me.

You don’t ever want to live life settling. Click To Tweet

Veggies.

You don’t know until you know though, that’s the thing. Most people aren’t on an extreme fitness journey where they have to look up this stuff. You learn some of this stuff in school but a lot of that is proven to be incorrect. I feel that we can push away the incorrect content and trump it as a whole big community and make it better, that’s my goal. The other underlying goal for me is when I was a kid, I had bad relationships with food and with my body. I’m not 100% over it now. It’s something people struggle with their whole life.

A lot of it fed on other people’s comments and stuff but it was mostly when the internet came out with social media and stuff. Seeing all these people and what other people are eating like, “Am I eating too much?” Everything was wrong. I was comparing and confused. That funneled into the reason why I had so many issues.

I have gotten some messages that warm my heart more than anything in the world saying that I helped people with their eating, their relationship with their food, their relationship with their body, and how they do themselves. If I could have had someone like me, I didn’t follow anyone helpful in those instances. That would have changed a lot sooner.

The trend when I was at the most vulnerable age was that everybody was Kate Moss skinny. Their diet was cigarettes and Diet Coke. What would I have for lunch? Diet Coke. That’s what I would have all day. I used to have caffeine pills. It’s so unhealthy. Nobody was there to teach me about nutrition. At the time, there was no Instagram, no Facebook or whatever. People take what they see on the internet as truth. I’m like, “I hope nobody is modeling what I eat in a day after this person.” It’s hard. You want to share your story and be like, “Don’t eat like this,” but then you don’t want to shame that woman either. It’s a fine line.

It’s an uncomfortable fine line where you want to educate and you want to be able to show people what you are not supposed to do but you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and talk crap.

You are like, “You look beautiful. You are just skinny and that’s why you can eat that way.”

Genetics. This is the other issue. Another thing I always try and teach is me and you, me and anybody, we could eat the same things for our entire lives and do the same workouts but we are never going to look the same. Once that clicks for people and they were like, “I see this famous TikTok girl that is this thin has her ab showing all the time and never bloated. Why don’t I look like that? Maybe if I starve myself, I’m going to look like that.” I see so many comments like that on people’s profiles or videos.

I’m like, “If you understood genetics plays a big part, that person probably is naturally happy that way or could be a big issue. Maybe they are healthy and what they found works for them. It doesn’t mean that you should ever be comparing yourself to them. That’s like comparing a zebra to a pig. None of this makes sense. We are all made up differently.”

That’s something that people need to hear. I’m glad we are talking about it because a lot of people are like, “I wish I could get a flat stomach like you.” I’m like, “You can. It’s called a tummy tuck and a lot of weight loss.” That’s why I was candid about my tummy tuck because I don’t want people to think that I was able to get rid of all the excess skin myself. I couldn’t have. The doctor had to take all of that skin and take it off my body. That was the only way to do it.

I had to put in the work before that to lose that weight. On my arms, I still have a lot of excess skin right here. I’m like, “Should I get rid of it? Should I get the surgery? Do I need it?” This was getting in the way of my workouts. I’m like, “Is this getting in the way? Not really. I could probably do without it. Would it be better for me aesthetically? Yes, it would but then is it just vanity at that point?” I’m having this internal struggle with that.

I have an interesting perspective on making any alterations to yourself. A lot of people view it as a form of self-hatred sometimes like, “I hate this part of me. Therefore, I’m going to change it.” It’s out of a total negative mindset. With your situation, with any type of other things that you could get done, to me, to each have their own effect, it’s truly is going to make them feel more confident and it’s not out of some negative awful stuff that they are saying themselves like, “I would feel a lot better.”

Whenever I do a photo shoot, I’m like, “Can you tell me how to pose my arms?” I’m always conscious about my arms and I hate that but it’s something that I have to admit.

My thing is, do your thing for yourself. It’s your body. It’s nobody else’s body. It might take time to come to your decision but if it’s going to make you feel more confident and not as worrisome, then it’s something that you might decide to do. Awesome for you. If not, awesome again.

I would like to get back to the gym after this car accident that I have had, that would be great. All I can do is have my Pilates instructor come here three times a week and we do mat Pilates and physical therapy. Things like clamshells are small movements but they are penetrating deep into the muscle. We do things like that. I can’t wait to get back to lifting and stuff but I can’t even lift a case of water now.

That’s got to be so frustrating, especially when you are so used to being active. When that’s your way, that’s hard.

I have to watch my eating even more because the extra calories I was expending, I’m not expending anymore. I’m like, “I can’t have this pizza but let me replicate the pizza.” I made myself a pizza but I baked some eggplant in the oven. I used that as the base, and then I put pizza sauce and cheese. I broiled it. I like eggplant.

I was a picky kid and I wouldn’t eat any vegetables or fruit. I would make myself throw up instead of eating. I was the worst child. You did not want me as a kid but now I’m great. The only thing I liked are eggplant and pasta.

 

I love eggplant. It’s so good. It’s delicious. The greens are what I have trouble getting down. My friend Nicola prescribed it to me. She’s like, “You don’t need to take a daily probiotic. You need to have one salad a day and that’s going to help your gut flora.” Since I have been doing that, there has been such a change in my digestive health. It’s incredible.

This could be wrong. The internet spreads a lot of bad stuff. I heard someone say, “There is no true knowledge of the gut.” I don’t know if that’s true or not.

She is a certified nutritionist. She works with people with eating disorders like binge eating and things like that. That’s something that I struggled with, binge eating, volume eating. I believe what she says. She said, “There’s no true research on taking a probiotic.” If you chew on a sugar gummy probiotic, that is not going to do shit for you. She’s like, “The real thing to do is to make sure that you have cleaned out from the inside out. If you are having the leafy greens, that’s going to help your gut.” You could be right but I believe her. I feel better. I was on probiotics for more than eight years. I thought it was doing something but it could have been a placebo effect. I have no idea.

It’s hard. I’m not nutrition certified at all. The gut is one of the biggest things that people need to fix. I experienced stomach issues so I’m going to start doing smaller leafy greens.

“One big leafy green salad a day,” she said. You can put chopped-up apples and lentils. She always talks about using Primal Kitchen for dressing. You should follow her, by the way. I will send you her profile. You would love her. This conversation could go on forever. You are fantastic. I’m glad we’ve got to talk because we chat all the time but we don’t sit down and talk. I feel we will need to have you back to see how much you have grown because I have a feeling it’s going to be up from here.

I hope so.

You are manifesting it. I love the manifestation journal that you do. That’s so great. Can you tell people about that real quick? I would love to hear it.

I’m getting more into manifestation. What I do every morning and every night if I can but always every morning, is I write down five things of gratitude. I do five things of intentions. I do as many manifestations as I want, I have learned and I’m still doing some trial and error. If you write things down as if you already have them, think of a goal that you have and say, “I already have XYZ. I’m already happy in XYZ.” I write it down, and then I always say it out loud afterward and I heard that speaking into existence is key, then that’s when the Law of Attraction is going to come into play.

Also, whether manifestation works or not, which I like to think that it does. Even if it doesn’t, the more that you remind yourself of the things that you want and you deserve, and picture yourself with it, the more that you are subconsciously going to make steps and little decisions in your day to get yourself there. Another new tip that I learned that I’m going to try is to write out your story exactly what you envision for yourself and to do a meditation practice beforehand that guides you through. I will send you some of the stuff. What you truly want for yourself, and then write out the whole story. You start reading it out loud every now and then. It’s like you wrote your future. It’s cool.

I did the same things. I’m single so I was advised to do the same thing to manifest the exact kind of man that I want. Write as many characteristics as you want of what your ideal man has. You are like, “My husband has this.” I wrote it like that and it was hard to do at first because I was like, “I sound crazy. My husband has this.” As I went on, I’m like, “My husband is intentional with me. My husband asked me on dates. He doesn’t just ask me to hang out. He doesn’t ask me to hang out on the same day. He makes a plan,” all these things. I have found that because of my convictions, my dating life has changed. Not that I found anyone yet but my convictions have changed to where my boundaries are set so early that I weed out all of the fuckboys because they reveal themselves immediately. That’s helped.

It could be the universe working in your favor but also, it’s you. You have realized, “This is what I want. I’m not settling for less.”

I’m proud of you.

Your husband is coming.

He’s on his way.

He’s coming up to your door.

He’s here. That’s Uber Eats actually. I was going to ask you one more question that I asked everybody that comes on the show. I already know the answer to it but I’m going to ask you. Say you saw twenty-year-old Sophie walking down the street and you’ve got to go up to her and give her a big hug. As you left her hug, you could tell her one thing. What is the one thing you would tell her?

This is so basic but this speaks to everything that I needed when I was twenty. I would say, “You are enough.” It never felt like I was and I finally understand it.

That’s beautiful. I thought you were going to say something along the lines of, “Do what makes you happy. Follow your passion.”

Now, I want to do that.

You can say that, too. That’s fine. That goes with it, too. You are enough. You are more than enough. You are a beautiful person. I’m so happy that the universe brought us together. Thank you for sharing such a positive and beautiful message with people. Thank you for being authentic. There are so many women in the fitness world and beauty world because I would consider you beautiful, that truly use their platform in the worst way. It’s more of a toxic cycle of them. Validating themselves in bikinis or workout videos or one selfie at the gym but you take that time to go a step further and make sure people are getting it. Thank you for being you.

Do your thing for yourself. It’s your body and nobody else’s. Click To Tweet

Thank you. Honestly, I feel we were meant to have our paths cross. You are a beautiful human. You are going to do so well with this show. It’s going to go up and up. It’s so much fun. I feel like we have known each other forever.

I want to come to visit you. We could do a staycation near you or somewhere we could go. I don’t want to impose on your apartment. We can have a little staycation on the beach. That would be fun.

URL to IRL.

I like it. What does URL stand for?

Don’t ask me and I have no idea.

I was like, “What does URL stand for?”

I have always wondered that. Now that you have asked it, I don’t know.

We will have to google it. I don’t know if you have any more but will you send me your background for your Zoom?

Yes, I will. It manifests the apartment, that we deserve the place. Open windows, overlooking a beautiful sunset.

I’m moving to Italy eventually. I don’t know when but it will happen.

If you do, I’m coming with you.

Thank you again for being a part of The Luxury Dropout.

I’m excited. We will talk soon. Thank you for having me. I seriously had so much fun. That time flew by.

I love you. I will talk to you soon. Bye.

—

That’s it for this episode. Hopefully, you enjoyed and took something away from Sophie. She is such a bright light. At such a young age, she’s got it all figured out. There’s only up from here. The only direction that Sophie can go is up. If you are listening to me streaming, I would love it if you could give me a five-star review. If not, thanks for being here, and thanks for making it this far into the episode. It’s a treat to have you guys follow and interact with me in every single way. I love it. I love you, guys. I’m sending you all the love and all the hugs. Until next time, stay well and I will see you soon.

Important Links:

• Sophie Sanguedolce – Instagram
• TikTok – Sophie Dolce
• Think and Grow Rich
• Nicola Burbank – Previous episode
• Primal Kitchen
• Addison Rae – TikTok
• Long-sleeve brown shirt –  Stephanie Joplin Instagram post
• Musical.ly
• @RealStephanieJoplin – TikTok
• https://Linktr.ee/sophiedolcefitness

About Sophie Sanguedolce

Sophie is a fitness, health, body confidence, and self-love influencer on Instagram and TikTok. She has always had a passion for health and fitness and the passion to help and inspire others to find a sustainable way to achieve their goals. Breaking the false trends on social media and providing a source of truth for those who need it. She currently works in a corporate sales job while managing her social platforms all at once and wants to continue this journey further to touch and inspire as many people as possible to live their best mentally and physically healthy lives.