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Reclaiming Health and Balance in Midlife with Terry Tateossian · Building the Best You

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Building the Best You, a destination for you to reimagine what is possible in your life and then create it.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Gene Collins, and today we have a great guest coming to us from Tennessee.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have Terry Taddiosian.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, I'm doing that correctly.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've been trying.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I am so excited to talk to her because her story and her background is, first of all, super inspirational.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I could really relate.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about nutrition.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: She talks about lifestyle.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: She also has a platform that talks a lot about menopause, women, lifestyle, living your best life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: She's a coach.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: She does retreats.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: She has her own business, yoga, so many of the mindful things that are so important and that I think are even more important the older we get.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, Terry, welcome to the show.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jean, for having me.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for everything you do.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is a pleasure.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to get to talk to you.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was doing a little research in advance of this call and was digging on your website.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my goodness, your retreats, which we'll get to, just sounds so zen and everything you do sounds just so calming.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And what a wonderful way to make a living.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I am excited to talk about that.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do, I would love if you could share your story about how you got to be in the position that you are, a nutritionist, a coach, a lifestyle person.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you could tell a little bit about your background, because I know that you haven't always been in the space that you are now.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I started out from complete ground zero, right?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I knew nothing about nutrition.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: I knew nothing about fitness.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was a pretty hard worker.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: I came from an immigrant family.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I came to the States in 1989.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: And my entire life, what was drilled into my mind was you work hard, you get an education, you make a living, you climb the corporate ladder, and that's your purpose, that's your value.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's why you're loved.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's because you can provide, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so my whole life I spent doing that all the way up into my late 30s.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, what ended up happening, and I know I am not unique in this position, in this situation.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I hear this all the time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, this resonates with so many people.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel exactly the same way.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was completely burned out, lost.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had become a workaholic, alcoholic, nicotine holic, you name it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was I was all the holics, all of them.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I was 80 pounds overweight.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had never been overweight my entire life.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: I weighed about in my 20s, maybe 130 pounds.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my late 30s, I found myself at 210 pounds.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I am five foot three, just to give you some perspective on how much weight that actually was.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I started experiencing these really, really bizarre, crazy symptoms for someone who was 37.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, to give you a bit more background, I had my first child, my daughter at 30, my son at 35.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So now we're looking at two years postpartum.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still wearing maternity clothes.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, because I couldn't, I'd refuse to buy new clothes and that size.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I was in complete denial.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I was working, I would say probably about 16 hour days.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I had a business, still do, a different one though, and I was very, very active in growing the business.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I went from zero employees to 40 employees, multiple offices throughout the United States, just very, very busy and with two kids.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so one day I was opening up the freezer, was reaching for my nightly dose of ice cream, and I started having chest pains.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And not like, you know, oh, you know, it's a little bit of anxiety.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was having severe chest pains that uh that were so bad that I went to the hospital.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I went to ER.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they did all the all the tests.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: I spent overnight, gave me a Xanax, and told me to go home.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I had a panic attack.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was like, ah, panic attack, whatever.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's just that's a phantom problem.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just keep on going.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have time for that, right?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then a few months later it happened again.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: This time I was sure this had to be a heart attack because my my grandfather actually passed away from his fourth heart attack.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew I wasn't living the best lifestyle out there.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I knew that much.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, right back to ER, same exact thing.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: They said, go see a cardiologist, but we can't find anything going on with you.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so the story began.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I started chasing down what is wrong with me.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Which I hear all the time from a lot of women.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's common.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is wrong with me?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what did they determine or did they not determine?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a lot of things were wrong with me, but they were not what I was what I was suspecting, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, they they checked everything.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I did have PCOS, I did have uh 19 ovarian cysts, I did have prediabetic markers, I did not have a heart attack.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: There were panic attacks.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was drinking a lot of alcohol.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: I started out with one glass of wine, then it went all the way up to four, and then it was three glasses of gray goose on the rocks with a twist, and it just kept escalating uh to the point where I would wake up in the morning and calculate if I had enough uh vodka in the freezer.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it it was escalating, things were going in a very interesting direction for someone who was 37, 39.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally, somebody said, you know, you're pretty fat, like you probably need to lose some weight, you'll feel better.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, uh, right, right, that whole thing.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I went on this quest of all the diets on Amazon.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know, there's 30,000 diet books on Amazon.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Really Amazon?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Probably more at this point.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I I I was I'm an overachiever, okay?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a very hard worker, so I went through all of them.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Type A.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: You dug all in.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I tried every diet you can imagine, and I laugh about it now, but it was it was a very interesting time back then because I would do diet after diet after diet, and none of them ever worked.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they did for let's say like six weeks.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: I white knuckled it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I followed all the protocols, I did all the things, and then I'd lose, you know, 20 pounds, I'd come down to 190 uh in weighed, 180, and I would, you know, my mind would activate and go, this is enough.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is enough torture, this is enough sacrifice, you're already sacrificing enough.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: You work so hard, you do all these things, and you know, have a little chocolate, have a little Nutella, have a little ice cream, and then boom, I would get gained probably like 30 pounds instead of the 20 that I lost, I gained a little more.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right, sure.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so this cycle just kept going and going and going.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally I sat myself down and I had a mental board meeting with myself, and uh, we all determined all the personalities that live up in the head, we all determined that dice don't work and we need to do something different because that wasn't working for us, and so I uh I ended up hiring a coach who got me into this lifestyle.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is about I'm gonna be 15 next year.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, we're talking about 10, 10 years ago.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I got introduced to nutrition and weight lifting and high volume foods and how often to eat, and the fact that I was barely eating all day and then binging at night.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what is what is emotional eating and why do we do it, and all kinds of things like that.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, and so you said a couple things that I just I don't want to skim over.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm also a mindset coach.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what I love about you talking about the board meeting in your brain.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I have heard many people actually say that they have that conversation with the different personas of themselves.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes people don't think to do that exercise, but it is a really powerful one to do because our minds are constantly talking to us, and we very often are not aware of what really is happening, is just negative garbage.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what we tend to be doing, not taking the pause to actually listen to like what is that garbage that our personas and our internal board is talking about in us.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that you mentioned that because it's a good thing to point out to people.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Also, congratulations to you on 10 years because I love meeting people like you because you are living proof that it is not a diet, it is not one thing, it is a commitment to a lifestyle.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what works is the commitment to a lifestyle.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, what also happened, and I'm curious about this because I'm 55 and you're about to turn 50.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, did that lifestyle have to also pivot as you started to move through your 40s and hormones came into play?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And has that now added another level of your knowledge, your skill set, and your own constantly needing to work on yourself?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Such a good question.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's a plot twist.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was in perimenopause at 37.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: So underneath all of the these phantom symptoms, or you know, what I thought were potentially related to being obese, underneath it all, there was a storm brewing that was just awakening.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll never forget once I started lifting weights and I started eating correctly.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I started eating enough food, I was eating multiple times per day.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: There were large high-volume meals, lots of protein, vegetables, whole foods.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember I'll never forget.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I laugh about it so much now because it's so ridiculous.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: But this is what happens when you don't know things, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I'd lay in bed and I would just be burning like my whole, my insides, my whole body would be on fire, right?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, this is awesome.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm just laying here and I'm burning all the fat off.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had no idea that that was a hot flash.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't even cross my mind that I would be in perimenopause.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So people asked me, well, how did you figure it out?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know when I figured out I was in perimenopause?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: When?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: When I didn't get my period, I thought I was pregnant.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I I didn't get my period, and it was like three, four months passed by, and I was like, oh MG, I'm pregnant, pregnant.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this was at at 42, and I was thinking to myself, oh, there's no way this is this is not possible.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I cannot be pregnant at 42.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I was I was done, it was over.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the thing that is also so interesting about this is you're talking about when you were 42, which was almost eight years ago.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like even a year ago or even two years ago, the concept of perimenopause and menopause was something that was not discussed at all.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like there were absolutely no resources.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just now starting to hit and be a subject that there are lots of books about.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are lots of people on Instagram about it.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Doctors are becoming more educated.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even depending on where you live, it's still really hard to get information.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it is amazing to think that this happened to you eight years ago that you were in this state with so little information.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So little information on a lot of things.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, it's interesting because it was good and bad at the same time, right?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing that I noticed that's happening today that I would have probably gobbled up back then.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you're in a state that I was in, that a lot of women find themselves in where you're obese, you're overwhelmed, you're overstressed, you have kids, you have a family, you have a business, you and you're desperate, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you're desperate for a quick fix, you're desperate for quick results, and there's a lot of charlatans out there selling quick fixes and and promoting all kinds of supplements and pills and shots and all this stuff, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have latched on to that like so fast without giving myself a chance at all to do it the right way.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in a sense, it was a blessing for me not to even know that I was in perimenopause slash menopause until it was too late because it didn't let me, it I didn't get into my head, essentially, right?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, it was a it was not a blessing because it was scary, right?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know what was the heck was going on.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so my mind attributed it to something else.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And thankfully, I was doing positive things in my life where, you know, I I was changing my lifestyle simultaneously, where I would attribute perimenopause symptom to, you know, lifting weights.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my muscles are awake, I'm burning up there, my muscles are growing, you know, like things like that.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I just didn't know.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if I wasn't doing positive things with my life, I it would have been a lot scarier, right?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't, I wouldn't have had information or anything to attribute it to.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: It would have gone in the negative direction, like you said earlier, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: 98% of our thoughts are negative.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I would love to transition and talk about your business because I think one of the other really cool things that you do with your business is you create communities of like-minded women.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're taking the scary out of not knowing and feeling alone and suffering from all these symptoms, and you're providing a roadmap and also providing a community so that women don't feel so alone.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because everything that you described, I've met so many women who feel exactly that same way and are struggling with so many similar things, whether it be the panic attacks, the anxiety, the overworked, the drinking too much, very common, drinking too much, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not sleeping enough, not exercising enough, not lifting weights.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything that you mentioned, the whole lifestyle, part of it, not making themselves enough of a priority.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels so common, yet it's so easy for women to just keep going and plowing through without an acknowledgement that you're not alone in what you're doing.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, because we have been conditioned to value certain qualities about ourselves that are, in my opinion, upside down.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very valued in this society, and it's not just this country, it's worldwide to be really busy, to be, you know, working really hard, to be an overachiever, all of these things, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Type A's.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like from everything I have experienced firsthand and what I have seen in other women is that we have forgotten how to be still.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have forgotten what it really means to be a woman in a sense, right?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have forgotten that it's not necessarily all about being active and busy and rushing all the time and more about being in the moment or being inside of our body, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we have lost some of that knowledge, that intuition, that intuitive state of embodying our own presence.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so everything seems scary, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we hit our 40s and all these parametopausal symptoms start coming up, and and you know, the body's asking for something different.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: The body is asking for more stillness, you know, quiet time, you know, movement, the right nutrition, not being malnourished 90% of the time, not being on a diet all the time.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's asking for more rest, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Recovery, sleep.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're very important, but not in this culture.
• 18:17
  unknown: Right.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, like if you sleep more than eight hours a day, it's apparently a luxury.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had to unlearn all those things.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm seeing a lot of women really struggle with this because our whole lives are based on, you know, the opposite.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they are.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the opposite.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And even sleep, like if I tell people I sleep seven to eight hours a day, people most people look at me like I'm crazy.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how in the world do you do that?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I've just learned as I've gotten older that if I don't get that level of sleep, you know, nothing functions right.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've just had to make changes in my life to make that a priority.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that's often very difficult for women to do.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm fortunate.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have a 19-year-old, so it's possible.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: But women who are in their 40s that really need more sleep, it's often very difficult to get that.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so critical.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So critical.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to talk about your business.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can you share with everybody what you do?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: This will be in the show notes too, so people can find you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love to hear from you about your business and all of the things that you do because you do a lot of things.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this whole transformation, right?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: So losing 80 pounds, you know, even looking at photos of myself from 10 years ago to now, my skin has changed, although I should have aged.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have aged, but my skin looks better.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't drink alcohol anymore.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: My body composition has changed.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: All of these, even my hair and my eyesight have gotten better.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's really bizarre, but that's what's happening.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that led me to have a lot of women asking for help.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started coaching about four years ago for a lifestyle transformation.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that eventually led to in-person retreats in the Smoky Mountains where we talk about all these things in person.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's more of a condensed and immersive experience.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Five days, four nights, a lot of uh nervous system resets, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the other main things I have found over time is our nervous system is dysregulated, especially during perimenopause, and our mind is running in every direction.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: We are fearful, we don't know what the heck's going on.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Emotional regulation is not at its most optimal.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we talk about all of that.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yoga, Pilates, hiking, spending time in nature, grounding the right food, the right nutrition.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's ultimately those are the two things that I spend my time doing now.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's coaching and leading retreats for women that are looking to expand their horizon when in midlife.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it also sounds like it's not just nutrition and it's not just exercise.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you start to talk about nervous system regulation, there's a whole mind-body connection, which for a lot of people requires some education and some skills that they might not naturally have on their own.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to just dig in just a little bit from one-on-one coaching.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: If someone is seeking out a coach, what does that process look like?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about a full mind-body exercise, all the components.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: What does that actually look like?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: For one-on-one coaching, it's usually women that are either looking to gain weight or lose weight.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's surprising, right?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: There are women that need to gain weight.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know many of those, but okay.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's, I would say it's about 40, 60 split and maybe 40, 40, and then there's 20% that are looking for body recomposition, right?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they don't need to lose or gain weight.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: They just want it to be diverted to different spots.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so we started working on nutrition training, specifically lifting weights.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And there's some yoga or pralati sprinkled in.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: But those are the two main tools that I use in order to illuminate the person's mindset and their lifestyle, right?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you start doing something like this, you don't really have a choice in the matter.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of things come to light, uh, especially when you become intentional about a particular goal, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: So even if it's something as simple as I'm gonna eat 145 grams of protein per day and I'm gonna spread it out in five meals, and you start intentionally doing this, a lot, I call them boogeyman, a lot of the boogeyman in the closet, in your mind closet, are gonna jump up and say, whoa, why?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why are we doing this?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's too hard, it's too rigid, we don't need to do this.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: You you all all the all the reasons, right?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so in the process of coaching, we analyze them, we talk to all of them.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: We had the mental board meetings, we observe our beyond behavior without judgment, right?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I take myself as an example, one of the things that became came to light in this process is that I binged every night on jars of Nutella, pints of haggendas, bags of chips or whatever it was.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't because I intentionally wanted to.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it would happen when I in my blind side, right?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I would justify it in some way.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And this applies to every area of life, right?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we can set intentional goals of, you know, I want to build a business and I want to do XYZ, but then in reality, you turn around and you do something completely anti-or intention, right?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the question is, well, why?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we do these things when we're saying we want X, but we're actually doing Y?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: So those things are a part of coaching, uh, of the coaching process.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it it has given me so much pleasure and so much joy to be able to help women because if anybody has faced hundreds of boogeyman, it's been me.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy because then many times we we do the behavior that we know we shouldn't do, and we're doing it because it's providing some sort of comfort in one sense, and we can justify it, you know.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I had a terrible day, I had a great day, whatever.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like you can come up with any reason to eat the pint of ice cream.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's also the emotional thing that happens after we've eaten the pint of ice cream because we know that we shouldn't have done that.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So then there's all this shame that we put on ourselves because we know we shouldn't have done that.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so it becomes this very vicious cycle that I truly believe if you don't have someone else as a as a coach or uh, you know, someone that you've hired to partner with you, it's very hard to get yourself out of those things on your own.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you you spiral into the abyss, right?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it keeps you in that cycle.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you do you have the the behavior, whatever it may be.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a binge, for example, right?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you feel really good in the moment, right?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you're having an emotional eating binge, it's it's emotional, right?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's urgent and you feel like you have to have this immediately, and you're looking for some type of um mechanism or some type of a substance to take yourself out of the emotional state that you're currently in, right?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because you don't want to feel it, you don't want to address it, you don't want to acknowledge it, you want nothing to do with that thing, whatever it is, right?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so you use food, it could be other things as well.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: But in this case, and from my perspective, I I work with food to take yourself out of that uh nervous system state that you're in, right?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so when once clarity comes back, once you become lucid again, you're like, oh shoot, what the hell was that, right?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to do that, but you got caught up in in that cycle.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happens the next day is we try to fix it, right?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll I'll try and fix, oh gosh, you know, I ate 3,000 calories in that one Nutella jar.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Tomorrow I'm not eating anything.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: So now you're not only starving physically and emotionally, right?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because emotional eating is an emotional hunger.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a like a deep, unfulfilled need that we're looking to kind of manage.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And now you're not only hungry that way, but now you're hungry physically.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: So what's gonna happen on day three?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're back inside the Nutella jar again.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that just keeps repeating.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it spirals.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when people come to work with you, do you set expectations with them in terms of time frame, in terms of their commitment to time frame?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because as we talked about, you we are a society that wants everything now, and we don't want to wait for our goals.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you manage time frame expectations with people?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't have time frames because this work.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right, specifically, it's very easy to measure that.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: On average, when a woman is fully committed to the process and to the program, on average, what I see on average, what I see is a five to seven pound weight drop per month per month.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that's with radical honesty, that's with radically looking at your habits, your behaviors, looking at, you know, where things are moving in the wrong direction, just working directly with a coach in an honest way.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's on average, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: And and we're talking about women that are maybe, you know, 180, 180 pounds.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which sounds healthy to me, you know, based on my understanding of nutrition and health.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a healthy way to be approaching weight loss because you don't have the yo-yo massive up and down of I've dropped a ton of weight really quickly, because then it's also very easy to put that weight right back on very quickly.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you had to say to someone, you know, if they're like, I don't know that I can afford a coach, I can't do that.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if there are two things that someone who's listening could do and they feel like, oh, this resonates with me, I might need to change my lifestyle, but yet they aren't ready or can't financially afford a coach, what would those two things be that you would suggest to someone that they try to embrace for their lifestyle?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is you have to do a full audit, right?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: So think of yourself as a corporation, a company, a business.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're running numbers, your body, whether you know it or not, your body is running the ledger.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So be completely transparent, be radically honest.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And for let's say seven to 10 days, measure and track everything that you eat.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of those 10 days, add all the calories up for those 10 days and divide it by 10.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: That will give you your average caloric intake per day.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of times I'll see uh in this audit, in this financial caloric audit that we do, I'll see, you know, 600 calories one day, 3,000 calories the next day, 750 the next day, 2,500 the next day.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so women say, Well, you know, it's so different.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to figure that out.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you add up your 10 days, you divide by 10, that's your average caloric intake.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: I can almost guarantee you that you will be shocked at that number.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:29
  unknown: Right.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's usually two, two outcomes is what I usually see.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Way under eating.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking 1200 calories on average per day, or way overeating unconsciously, not really realizing that, oh wow, I'm at 4,000 calories a day on average, right?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I feel like I'm not eating much, these are very calorically dense foods that I'm choosing.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they're, they don't seem like I'm eating much, but just a handful of nuts is 300 calories.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, when you do the audit, you're gonna figure that out.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you said something that's really important in the beginning, being really honest, because a lot of times I think people say, Well, I had a glass of wine.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, okay, how many ounces of wine did you actually have?
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because a glass is not a glass, is not a glass.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not all equal.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not all glasses are the same.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you go out to a restaurant, a glass of wine can be very different.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be an eight-ounce pour.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're like, well, I just had one glass of wine, well, but maybe you actually had so much more than what you thought you had as well.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's always the case, though, right?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, like if you're eyeballing things, and we talk about this in coaching quite often, eyeballing things when you have a goal and you really want to meet your goal is a self-sabotaging type of behavior because you are being lackadaisical about it, right?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, and why?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it doesn't take that much effort to take your scale, put your plate on the scale, and scoop up your yogurt and be precise, right?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not about being rigid, it's about being precise so that you have the information that you need in order to see a result.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: If your accountant came back to you and said, you know, we're$3,000, we have missing in the books, but just forget, don't worry about it.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna be your reaction, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: What are you talking about?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, all right, yes.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where's my$3,000?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I asked you for two.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's the second thing that people could do?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: The second thing is start moving, right?
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: So start walking more.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Once you realize you're overeating, you're and once you start paying attention to that, you're naturally gonna start monitoring a little bit better, right?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you're naturally going to start like, oh, you know, maybe uh I should change things around, maybe I should add more protein.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so much information out there nowadays on what to eat, how much to eat, how much protein, body weight and protein, this, that, this many carbs.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna let the internet answer all those questions.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, the second thing is uh start moving a little bit more, right?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And start thinking about how can you incorporate incorporate movement into your day where you don't even feel like you're, you know, working extra, right?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the ways is maybe a stand-up desk, maybe a walking pad underneath your stand-up desk.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, you know, you get up every few hours off, you know, off your chair and you do a few jumping jacks or squats or whatever, you know, maybe, you know, and anything is better than nothing.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's no one perfect exercise.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: However, I am a little biased.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so for women in midlife, really that you're going to get the most bang for your buck is with lifting weights uh for lots of reasons, metabolically, you know, for bone density, hormones, all kinds of reasons.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of women feel that it's very intimidating, right?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So if initially you feel intimidated, and that's where a good coach comes in, right?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: To kind of ease you into that.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: If that feels too intimidating, then, you know, just start moving a little bit more, just in general.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing's more important than movement.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a huge fan of I have an aura ring, and the aura ring gives you credit for housework.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you're like walking up and down the stairs doing laundry, the aura ring will actually ask you if you're doing housework and will give you credit towards activity and calorie burn for housework.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I have found since I got the aura ring, I mean so much of it is mental in life.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, I'm like, you know what?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll vacuum the kitchen.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: I get some calories for vacuuming the kitchen.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a mental way to just look at movement just a little bit differently.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when you can get calorie count for it in your aura ring, all of a sudden, you know, vacuuming is not such a bad thing.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: It gamifies it, right?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: It really, it's all it's just like you said, it's the financial thing.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's all that, which is so great.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, before we run out of time, I love to ask my guests if there's a book that has impacted them personally or professionally that they would like to recommend to the listeners because I think books can change lives and I think it's really impactful.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: The things that all of my guests have read that have made a difference.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a book or books that you'd like to recommend, I would love to know it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: So my number one book, and we read this as a group in my coaching uh group.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: We all read it, uh we go through it, is Outlive by Peter Atia.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Ooh, I haven't read that one.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, all right.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: Phenomenal, phenomenal.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a little bit dense uh of a read.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it has a lot of medical uh jargon and it explains a lot of things about neurodegenerative disease, metabolic diseases, cancer, etc., you know, heart disease.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: So he goes through all of that and explains why lifestyle is the best medicine to prevent going in these directions.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, which is so, and honestly, I think, especially for women at our age, there's nothing more powerful than information.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: And whether that be information about the caloric intake that you have, information about the number of steps you're taking, information about menopause, perimenopause, anything.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Information is power.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: So any way that you can go out and get information is the most valuable thing I think that we can give to other women is the power of information.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for that recommendation.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Terry, it has been such a pleasure.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to put everything in the show notes for everybody.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have some really cool retreats coming up in 2026.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna link your website here so everybody can go check it out.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, one-on-one coaching can start anytime.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are recording this in December.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: It'll come out either in December or January.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is no time like the present, folks.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to wait until January.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to wait until February.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's no reason why you can't start now, making yourself and your health a priority.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I thank you so much for being on the show and for sharing your wisdom and your story is really inspiring.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Gene, for everything you do and for providing this platform for all of us.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome, and we'll definitely stay in touch.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Building the Best You.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you are ready to take a deeper dive into transforming your life, check out my Empowerment Fundamentals course on my website, houseofgermar.com.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and I will see you next week with another inspiring guest.