So a lot of women are going through perimetropos in their mid 30s, but the media out there
and the majority...
I was one of them.
The narrative is, oh, you know, it's in your 50s.
BS is what I call it because I started menopause at 36 and I was completely flabbergasted that
it was happening and I was clueless.
This is so strange.
We are living parallel lives.
I was 36 when I started as well.
So this is very, very odd.
Hey, hey, and welcome to the 40s Formula, your go to place for insightful discussions
on navigating the 40s and thriving in this transformative decade.
We're your hosts, Jasmine and Amanda, two women that are passionate about exploring
the challenges and adventures that come with turning 40 and what lies ahead.
Terry Taddeosian is a lifelong entrepreneur, founder of Social Fix Media and now a certified
health and emotional eating coach.
She embarked on a profoundly life altering journey in her mid 40s, successfully shedding
over 80 pounds at age 42 and discovering an untapped source of incredible physical and
emotional strength through her company, Thor Wellness.
She runs fitness and curated experiential retreats for women, and she is also host of
the How Good Can It Get podcast.
She's based in America and is also a mother of two.
So Terry, I cannot tell you the number of times that I've had women come to me and my coaching
journey and say, I'm begging to lose weight.
I'll do anything.
But in your 40s, it's actually not that easy to do.
But here you are, an entrepreneur who at age 42 embarked on a major weight loss journey,
losing 80 pounds and discovering an untapped source of incredible physical and mental strength
along the way.
Welcome, Terry, to the 40 formula.
Thank you, ladies, for having me.
I'm super excited and very grateful and honored to be here.
Thank you so much.
I was thinking when I was looking at Instagram and kind of studying a bit about your journey,
one of my favorite quotes in fitness is the heaviest weight in the gym is the front door.
Right.
For so many women, the biggest thing to overcome is just actually getting started.
How did you overcome that?
How did you push that door, girl?
With every ounce of will and determination that I had.
So funny story, when I started working out at about 42, I received my program at a coach
and there were abbreviations in the program, things like RDL and DB and all these things.
And for the life of me, I could not figure out what DB was.
I had no idea.
I had never put up a weight in my life.
You're like decibels.
And it's funny.
I mean, you say that and we can laugh, right, because you know, you're sitting in a room
of fitness and wellness professionals.
But that lingo, right, those abbreviations, those acronyms, that's a barrier to entry.
It makes you feel like you're outside a world and you'll never get it.
Right.
So, you know, getting used to that type of stuff.
I love that you work with a coach, obviously, as a coach.
I have to love that.
Can you tell me about the decision to employ a coach in the beginning?
Yes.
So at first I tried to do it on my own.
Right.
So I had done over 30 diets in my 10 years prior to that.
I tried it all.
You name it, I've done it.
And then I decided that this is no longer working.
None of these diets work.
I'm going to make up my own thing.
I made it up.
Right.
And I was doing about two and a half hours of Peloton cardio.
And I decided I was only going to eat salads all day.
So I would make this huge, giant bowl of salad and I ate that all day and I lost 30 pounds.
As you could.
But my biggest fear was that I was going to regain it, which was my past history.
I had a lot of emotional eating issues.
I was very overwhelmed, stressed, overworked, underfed, right?
So super restrictive diets.
Eventually you go back to normal life, you regain it plus some.
And I was determined.
I said to myself, I am not going to gain this weight back.
I'm actually, as a matter of fact, going to lose some more.
So at that point I was at about 180.
That's pounds for our listeners.
And I'm five three.
And at that point I had a friend who had just entered a bodybuilding competition and she
had a coach and she had gone on stage.
And so I started scrolling through Instagram, went down the rabbit hole and I found one
of the competitors that was on that stage with her who was offering a challenge.
And I was like, you know what?
I'm going to apply.
I mean, I had never lifted weights before.
I had zero expectation that I was even going to be accepted into this.
And so I applied and lo and behold, a month later I get an email like, hey, you're in
and we're starting January 1st.
And I had a big mind blow out because I had no clue what that meant.
I was a complete noob.
And that's how it all began in 2019.
Wow.
Just a quick question, though.
On December 31st, what was your mindset like?
What went through your head?
Knowing what was in the morning.
What was going to happen on the 1st of January?
Panic.
And I was convinced that she would call me out as basically like an imposter.
I had never worked out before.
I had no idea what I was doing.
And then when I started the program, I found out that a lot of the other girls were professional
competitors, professional bodybuilders.
They were not what, as I refer to myself as marshmallow back then, they were not marshmallows.
And they were really serious.
And I did not belong there, let me tell you.
But see what's funny, Terry, is that from a coach, right?
You are a coach's dream, a blank slate, a beautiful canvas ready to be painted with
the correct ways of doing this, right?
I think in coaching so often we're dealing with unpacking what people have already learned,
you know, faultily, unfortunately, along their miss, you know, their 30 diets in 10 years.
And you spend half your time unpacking and untraining and, you know, undoing the old
ways.
You came in fresh, girl.
And I bet your coach was so excited to have a client like you.
And I think your message of you feeling like an imposter, I think is powerful for others
to hear that, in fact, clients like yourself are one of the best candidates for a coaching
journey because you've got nowhere to go but up.
I agree with you as far as the training was concerned.
And somewhat a little bit with the nutrition, I joke around and I say, you know, I needed
to have a PhD in nutrition to understand what macros were and how to put meals together.
And I remember I had like 19 ingredients in one of my meals.
Oh, my.
And my coach came back and said, No, no, no, you need like no more than four.
And I couldn't figure out how to do that.
But with a lot of trial and error, eventually, it kind of all came together.
And that's what emotional eating hit me smack in the face.
And I discovered that I had an eating disorder for probably my entire life that was undiagnosed.
Of course, emotional eating is a self diagnosed type of thing.
And that's when change really began to happen for me.
It wasn't necessarily in the training or even the nutrition, because I could white knuckle
that up to a point.
And then all hell would break loose once I encountered a challenge that that got me emotionally
unstable.
So there were a lot of layers to this journey and a lot of levels to that that you kind
of have to keep progressing into the development of your mind, essentially.
Absolutely.
I always say it's weight loss.
You know, it's not just the food and the exercise is this whole mindset thing you have to you
have to change what's going on in your mind.
Otherwise, things won't change in the long run.
You just always revert back to your old self.
Amanda, you're going to love this.
I just found out that the meat club have added a whole new range of protein snacks and supplements
to their website.
Wait, what?
I thought they just did the meat and the fish and that brand new range of fresh fruit and
veggies.
They do.
But now they've got things like grass fed jerky, protein bars and even bone broth.
It's all packed with nutrients that are perfect for a quick and healthy snack.
OK, that is exactly what I need for the days when I'm running between clients and recordings
and kids.
Exactly.
Do you know what I love the most is the chief collagen protein.
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Now back to the chat.
Like you, I've got a similar story.
I went through every single diet in the book, but it was only when something changed in
my brain that I no longer wanted to eat sugary stuff.
I didn't want to eat the crisps.
I didn't want to eat chocolate.
And that's when things started to fall into place.
And it was like, oh, actually, I want to eat the protein.
I want to eat the vegetables and I want to eat the good stuff.
And I think until it's not I can't have and it's more of I don't want to have that things
won't necessarily feel right to you.
100%.
And through this entire journey, I actually discovered that emotional starvation is worse
than physical starvation or malnutrition in a lot of ways, because when I didn't take
care of myself emotionally and I was not emotionally healthy, I did not want to do all the other
things.
I didn't want to train.
I didn't want to eat properly.
I didn't want to track.
I just wanted to wallow in my own misery, in a sense.
So until I stabilized that aspect, the emotional eating habit was always going to be there
because essentially I used food the same way I used alcohol and other substances to cope
with my internal state.
And that discovery was really a surprise because I was in it for the weight loss.
But I walked away with a completely different mindset of discovering traumas and things
that I had picked up along the way that no longer served me.
So it was a very cathartic type of experience.
And is that something that you went through solely with your coach?
Or is that something that you worked with a therapist on or who was employed in kind
of your wellness circle?
So not a great story, but I did end up finding a therapist and I was counting macros at the
time.
I was training really hard.
I was doing really well.
I was really into it.
And the therapist was a little bit against it for whatever reason.
And so I kind of broke up with her and continued on my own.
And you figured it all out on your own?
I had to because I feel like people have a lot of biases when it comes to food.
And they believe certain type of rigidity or macros or a plan or structure may sometimes
not really work for some people with emotional and eating disorders.
But it was working for me.
It gave me freedom to be able to understand and know that the food I was eating was actually
properly fueling me and that if I did experience hunger, that it made me question, was it physical
hunger or was it emotional hunger?
Because I knew that the food I was eating should have kept me full.
So if I was looking for something else, I had to question why.
Oh, I love that you use the term freedom because I think once you realize what it is that you're
searching for, then you can definitely address the issues.
But until you get to that point, you're not going to know.
Like you said, you're sitting in front of the TV and you're like, oh, I fancy something.
Are you really hungry or are you bored?
Are you stressed?
What is it that is driving you to eat?
Hey, Amanda, you know how much I love clean home cooked food.
There's just something about knowing exactly what goes into your meal, right?
Yeah, but let's also be real.
Sometimes it's just not possible to cook at home with our busy schedules.
I know, but that's why I've been loving Guzmine Gomez.
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Oh, I love that so much.
So even when I cannot cook at home, I don't have to compromise on eating clean.
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Sounds like a win to me.
Now let's get back to the chat.
Yes, primary food, right?
So the difference between primary food and regular food is the craving for intimacy,
connection, love, happiness, joy, boredom, you know, whatever it may be that may be driving
you to consume physical food as a replacement for that emotion.
And that was very eye opening for me.
Yeah, I mean, that is so hard to do though, Tara.
I mean, you're talking about it so beautifully, you know, and with such honest transformation.
What tips could you give our listeners that struggle with exactly what you're talking
about, which is they have the structural components of counting macros or they have the structural
components of working out, but they have not yet been able to tap into that emotional bit.
What are some tips that you could give our listeners?
Well, the first one is give yourself some space to process your life.
What are you feeling?
Right?
Some of us don't even know what we feel on a minute to minute basis.
We're completely disconnected with our essence of who we are, what we like, what we don't
like.
We're overwhelmed, right?
So start removing things from your life that are unnecessary, that you're doing them out
of obligation, you're people pleasing, you're doing too much stuff and don't have enough
time to process your midlife events that are occurring.
And for a lot of us, those events happen a lot sooner than we expect.
So a lot of women are going through perimetropology in their mid thirties, but the media out there
and the majority...
I was one of them.
The narrative is, oh, you know, it's in your fifties.
BS is what I call it because I started menopause at 36 and I was completely flabbergasted that
it was happening and I was clueless.
This is so strange.
We are living parallel lives.
I was 36 when I started as well.
So this is very, very odd.
Yes.
So, you know, you need space to process all these changes that are not only happening
to you internally, hormonally, they're also happening to you in life.
I mean, aging parents, young children, teenagers, more stress at work, all kinds of things,
more bills, bigger mortgage, all of this stuff, right?
And it's a perfect storm to kind of disassociate from yourself and be unhappy and be miserable
because you're so disconnected.
So give yourself the space to process it.
And then the third thing is give yourself the grace and the dignity to go through the
process.
It's not easy.
People that make it sound like it's just one, two, three, it's a light switch or, you know,
one day you're miserable and next day you're going to be happy.
That's not really the case.
It takes years to become a balanced, harmonious, grounded type of person, especially if you're
going through menopause.
So those are really my top tips because get your training in, get your protein in, get
your cardio in, get your nutrition.
I think we've beaten that horse to death at this point.
Jasmine, there is so much information on gut health out there right now.
And if we as nutritionists are tired of trying to wade through the oceans of probiotic strains
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And now back to the show.
Yes.
And you're absolutely right.
Those are those are all great tips, right?
But you know, we always say it's like you can't build a house on a shaky foundation.
So even if you got the columns of perfect nutrition, perfect workouts, great coaching,
if you have not addressed the foundation of your issues, that house will fall.
You know, might be a day and might be a month, might be a year, but it doesn't it can't
stand on a weak foundation.
And I think, Terry, you've hit on two things that both Jasmine and I run into as coaches
all the time, which is give yourself space and give yourself time.
Right.
These changes are not quick fixes.
And unfortunately, social media gives us that impression that, you know, if you see it before
and after, the first thing you check is what's the time between?
Right.
14 weeks.
Yeah.
How many days?
How many weeks?
How many hours people want versus like the actual years you just mentioned that it takes
to make these sustained changes.
And I think one way we're seeing that reflected in our culture is with the rise of Ozempic,
right?
The GLP-1 agonist drugs and people saying, you know, why would I do what Terry is doing?
Why would I do this hard work?
Look at my emotions, unpack my childhood.
Why would I do that when I can just inject?
And you know, for women that might be considering that option, what's your opinion and what
advice would you give?
Well, I know countless people that have had gastric bypass, gastric sleeve.
Sure.
Taken Ozempic.
If you don't change your habits, you will regain it.
Plus you're going to inherit a slew of other health conditions on top of that that you
didn't have before.
So my question always is when it comes to pharmaceuticals of any kind, have you exhausted
every avenue?
Have you done everything you possibly can?
Holistically, mentally, emotionally, physically, have you looked at your movement patterns
throughout the day, your nutrition, your mindset, your emotions, your life, your job, all of
these things, your sleep?
What does your sleep look like?
Have you exhausted every single avenue before you reach for the meds?
Because the meds, you might have to be on them for the rest of your life.
And that's the thing, anyone can lose weight, but it's keeping it off.
And until you address the underlying emotions and the underlying reasons why you gained
weight in the first place, you won't be able to sustain it.
Exactly.
100%.
Almost every story that I hear about Ozempic or any of the gastric sleeves, people always
regain the weight back because their behaviors and their habits and their mindset did not
change.
It was just a bandaid.
And I'm not necessarily against it because a lot of people may need that bridge in time
in order to change their habits and behaviors, but that should not be a permanent solution,
in my opinion.
I like how you phrase that, Terry, a bridge in time.
And because that's really what those GLP agonists can be for some people, of course, right,
is giving them a little bit of a bit of hope, right, a bit of time to see a bit of success
where then they might be inspired to make those changes.
But again, we'll all have to wait for the long term data to see how that game pans out.
There's so many reasons, Terry, that people are overweight, right?
There's as many reasons for being overweight as there are overweight people.
And in America, you know, we know that that's about 70% of the population.
So we're talking about a lot of folks.
You are a coach, you lead wellness retreats, and you are speaking to our exact audience,
which is women in their 40s.
What are the most common reasons you see for women in their 40s being overweight?
Sugar.
Well, one word, I like it.
We're consuming fructose in everything we eat.
So we've become completely disconnected with our own food.
We're consuming things in a box, a container, a bag, a package, even foods that are labeled
as healthy foods are full of fructose.
So when we're overeating, in that sense, we're overeating sugar and fructose and corn syrup
and all of these things.
What is the body going to do with all that excess amount of calories?
It's in everything, right?
So we've gotten away from cooking at home.
We've gotten away from purchasing whole foods where we don't even know what is what have
the ingredients are and the packages.
We're extremely overwhelmed, stressed, busy, and we've disconnected from our true nature.
So the fact that it's happening on such a large scale, it's not an individual thing
if it's happening literally to 70% of the United States population.
So there is a systemic issue, which is very unfortunate in my opinion.
Yeah, and you've hit on something, Terry.
You mentioned sugar, you mentioned fructose, you mentioned carbohydrates generally.
And here in Singapore, we have a much lower incidence of obesity and overweight, right?
We have a genetically smaller population, lighter population.
However, we have a rampant pre-diabetes and diabetes problem.
And we see it at the gestational level with pregnant women here, almost one in three develop
gestational diabetes in the Asian population.
We're seeing one in five after age 65 will develop diabetes type two in their older age.
So sugar is definitely an issue that kind of spans whether you're heavy or not heavy,
right?
This is something that is a bigger issue.
Can you share some of the dietary changes that you made to overcome the sugar problem?
The dietary changes I made, I crowded it out essentially.
And it wasn't a conscious thing.
I at that time did not know what I was doing because I was being coached.
But in 2019, I had my doses, right?
I had my dosage of food.
Every three hours, I was supposed to eat X amount of protein, X amount of carbs, and
X amount of fats.
Now the location of the starchy carbohydrates was always right around workout times.
At that time, I did not understand that that was very strategic as well.
And so I had to meet these requirements every three hours, just like medication.
I was dosing every three hours, certain amount of protein, certain amount of carbs, certain
amount of fat.
And I was so full with real food.
I couldn't look at any more food because when I first started out, my caloric intake was
supposed to be 1500 calories of this type of structured eating.
And I remember about three weeks in, my coach got suspicious and she said, are you eating
all your food?
And I was like, oh, no, I can't.
It's too much food.
I could not get it all down.
It was too much protein.
And so I discovered that, you know, obviously what I was eating prior to beginning this
lifestyle was pints of ice cream and cookies and stuff that.
And there's your 1500 calories in one pint of ice cream.
And it's funny because it's the hyperpalatable foods are so easy to overconsume that you
don't realize that you're getting more calories out of it.
And the satiety is not there.
So then you end up eating more overall.
But then like you just said, when you're eating more protein and strategic carbs and your
fats, actually getting in 1500 calories of those types of macros is so much harder because
they fill you up.
And that's the difference between the hyperpalatable processed pints of ice cream and chocolate
and sugar and prepackaged food in comparison to your lean proteins and vegetables and avocados
and fats that you'll be taking.
Yeah.
And you just, you know, to circle back to what we just talked about with Ozempic and
GLP-1 agonists, people think that Ozempic, you know, Saxenda, Wigovia, whatever, you
know, these ones are that it's a medicine, right?
I'm injecting some foreign medicine into my body.
GLP-1 is a hormone we all secrete.
It is something that we all actually produce.
And how do we produce it when we eat protein?
And what does GLP-1 agonists do?
It induces satiety.
So let's put those two together, right?
Eating protein induces satiety.
We can create that effect in our own diets and you're living proof.
100%.
And so the more you crowd out sugar with real food, the less hungry you are.
And it doesn't take a pint of ice cream to fill you up.
You could have one or two teaspoons and you're good.
Correct.
I like the idea of crowding it out, right?
Crowd out the noise with the real nutrition.
That is such a powerful message.
I think that, you know, speaking of power, right?
So obviously eating protein, that's a strategic element nutritionally.
But circling back to mindset, which will always be the most powerful element, you said that
your journey was both physical and metaphysical and that you had to change your energy to
change your life.
Can you tell us during that process, how did you change your energy?
How did you make it metaphysical?
I think people like to have kind of touch points to grab on to in those concepts.
And I feel like you'd be a great person to speak to that.
So the best way that I can describe it is every day that I put the work in, every day
I showed up for myself.
Every day I kept my promise.
Every day I shed another few ounces or every week I shed another pound and gained muscle.
My physical body was different.
My cells were different.
I was creating and building new cells and those new cells were born in an energy of
positive thoughts, positive actions, positive direction.
There was hope.
I was inspired to make these changes.
So when my body was changing physically, it was being birthed essentially into a very
different energetic field that I was creating with my actions.
And so everything that happened after that is a result of that energy I was creating.
I was pushing myself into the positive spectrum, not necessarily with some type of woo woo
statements or comments or sayings or any of that, but I was literally going through the
process in a very authentic, honest way.
I was struggling.
I was continuing to struggle, but I wouldn't quit on myself this time.
And so everything was born in that kind of chaotic mess I had going on.
And just continued to progress in that sense.
So when I say I changed metaphysically, I literally did.
I changed physically and energetically at the same time.
Do you know what I'm visualizing here?
I'm visualizing like this superhero rebirth, you know, like this energy just like pouring
out, like this light energy pouring out of you.
Yeah, that's just incredible.
I just love that message.
And I think having those positive vibes is something that everyone going on a transformative
journey needs, because that's the light and the hope that's going to get you through.
But I also love, because you said you thought superhero, I thought Care Bear, right?
Like the Braveheart energy coming out.
But it's also important that you use the word struggle, Terry, because this, I think, is
a really key point that when people start off a journey, they are filled with positivity,
hopefully, right?
They're so excited to start this new thing.
The training plan is shiny and new and the nutrition looks cool.
And let's give it a try.
The plan is, you know, first time I'm seeing these new meals.
But then the struggle hits.
It's my hundredth deadlift.
It's my 60,000th chicken breast.
It's my it's my 16th night in a row of saying, sorry, guys, can't go out.
I got to get to bed by 9 p.m.
It's in the drudgery that people start to struggle.
And I think that hearing you say that you can overcome that by continuing to use positivity
in that journey, even when the struggle is tough is so important.
You know, I think of one of the best quotes that I know from Brad Stolberg, which is the
goal is the path and the path is the goal.
It's not dissimilar, right?
The journey that you're on is actually what you want.
And by acting, you stay on it.
And I love that you are, you know, able and willing to make those changes.
I want to circle back a bit to the wellness retreats that you lead for women.
You know, we always talk about how there is no quick fix, right?
There is no 30 day plan.
But I think there is value in making space, right?
Taking time away from your real life to kind of do some work.
Can you talk about what you do with your wellness retreats with women in their 40s?
Absolutely.
So we spend sometimes four, sometimes five days in the mountains of Tennessee, in the
Smoky Mountains on a 50 acre property in the Cherokee National Forest.
And we basically the only thing that we do is we do yoga in the morning.
We have a macro based lunch.
We strength train.
We go on hikes.
We have dinner.
We do another restorative yoga class and we sleep and then we repeat that every day.
I want to go on this other day.
I mean this.
I mind is there with you, Terry.
I want to be there.
My body wants to be there.
Oh, that sounds perfect.
Yeah, that is beautiful.
And do you have, you know, women that go through kind of emotional changes during that time?
Every time.
And something that's really interesting that happens that I'm always blown away by this.
Women come there from all over the United States and they don't know each other when
they pack their suitcases.
And every once in a while, they will all, we all come out in the same color or matching
colors.
That synchronicity you were just talking about.
Yeah.
And coordinating colors and, you know, pink, white, pink, white, pink, white.
And I'm like, how did you guys do that?
I have no idea how it happens, but there's vibes, girl.
Yeah.
There's a synchronicity.
There's also a lot of groups that have really uncharacteristic things in common that are
very obscure and they discover all these things and they become connected for a long time.
There's chats going on and group chats and people are very encouraging and inspiring.
And it's so cool because a couple of weeks ago I had an ultra marathon runner who does
100 mile marathons.
I always just, she is a queen.
And again, for our listeners, a hundred miles is like a lot of kilometers.
It's way more than a hundred kilometers.
Yes.
Well, it's funny that you just mentioned that, by the way, because, you know, in the beginning
of this interview, you were talking to us about how you had to do a lot of work alone,
right?
You did work with a coach, you tried a therapist, but in the end it was really you.
But then with these retreats, obviously the community aspect is so huge.
Can you talk about how women can go about finding a community if they are struggling
to do it on their own?
So when I was working with my coach and I still have a coach, by the way, there is a
community aspect to it.
And there are other teammates that are also being coached by the same coach.
And I firmly believe that that was the secret sauce to my success was the community and
the support that I gained from this experience because we were all in a way in this boot
camp together and we were all starting at the same time.
We were all doing all these things together.
And despite the fact that I may not have been at their level or someone was further along
or I was further along, it didn't really matter.
We all kind of worked together and cheered each other on.
And so the retreats are a very similar type of experience because from all walks of life,
women come with all kinds of levels of fitness and with all kinds of different challenges
that they faced in the past or currently are facing.
And they get to feel like they're not alone in this because I think that that feeling
of loneliness and disconnection is a lot of times what causes us to kind of give up because
we feel like it doesn't matter.
Nobody cares.
It's just me.
And so that's a very common story that I hear a lot.
And I think you're absolutely right that there's a level of individual resilience that you
have to develop.
You get it.
Like only you can lift the weight, right?
Only you can put the food in your mouth.
But at the end of the day, there has to be a community of somebody that understands and
supports you.
If you want to make a change, surround yourself with people that are living that change.
You want to avoid the opposite, by the way, avoid those who are detracting from your journey.
That's definitely not the people you want to be around.
And in terms of the community of women, the broader community of women, I want to transition
a bit into thinking about not women in our 40s necessarily, but our daughters.
You went through this incredible weight loss journey literally in front of your daughter,
right?
I mean, she is cognizant of age watching you go through this.
How did you talk about the changes you were making with her?
And what tips can you give moms that struggle to have weight positive conversations with
their daughters around food and movement and health?
You know, I never really talked about it directly.
I just did it.
I did it.
There was really no conversation while I was doing it about what I was doing, why I was
doing it.
It was, you know, I never really called myself fat.
And I was never using language that was derogatory towards myself, really ever.
I joke around about it.
You know, it's as a matter of fact, like, yeah, I was fat.
But as I was wearing that body at the time, I never really said those things out loud
because I just don't think that that was really necessary.
You know, it was obvious what was happening.
But she did watch me weigh my food.
She did watch me make different types of food.
She did notice that I wouldn't eat takeout anymore.
There was less and less takeout.
I wasn't eating the pizza and I was eating something else.
And you know, she's currently 16 years old.
So that was about five years ago.
She was 11.
And the outcome is that almost 17, she's going to be 17 in September.
The outcome is that she loves going to the gym.
She loves lifting weights.
She can do macros better than me.
That's incredible that she kind of she.
Yeah.
Use your example as educational.
Yes.
And she has an app and she asked me because she trains for soccer and they have nutritional
requirements.
Obviously, if you're weightlifting and strength training, it's very important that the coaches
in high school tell her that it's important to eat enough protein, to have enough fuel,
to be able to withstand two hour training sessions for training season and games and
things like that.
So she asked me, she said, can you show me how to track my macros?
And so I gave her the app and she was literally it took a day and I was like, wow, that took
me.
That took me a year.
That's amazing that they're encouraging her to eat more food to support her nutritional,
you know, her energy requirements rather than, you know, her thinking, oh, I need to stop
eating or I need to reduce my calories.
Because I think there was especially when we were growing up, there's always this fine
line wasn't there of, you know, you can't eat too much.
Whereas I feel like the fact that now people are in kids, especially our training and their
exercising and they're playing sports, their energy requirement is so much higher that
they need to ensure that they're getting enough of the macros and enough of the energy in
so they can sustain their goals.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah, there are many, many different opinions on giving tracking tools to adolescents and
teenagers.
Right.
And you know, this is not the purpose of this entire podcast episode.
But Terry, I think you've pointed out something really important.
I do a lot of work with teenage athletes.
That's one of my kind of outreach groups that I work on here in Singapore.
And I am constantly encouraging parents to educate themselves in those tools to get what
I call nutrition literate.
You know, like you said, what's a macro?
I bet a lot of our listeners don't quite even know what a day is or couldn't, you know,
couldn't drop what they are.
There's three of them, by the way, protein, fats and carbs.
Four if you include alcohol.
Four of you, yeah.
Four if you include non-nutritive.
Absolutely.
But point being, it's like we need to be nutrition literate so that we're aware of some of the
deficiencies that our kids might be facing, especially if they're highly athletic.
You know, we talk a lot in my presentations about red S, relative energy deficiency in
sport.
You don't know if you have an energy deficiency unless you know the energy intake.
And this is why, you know, when people say, I don't want my kid tracking because I don't
want them getting obsessed with deficit.
Well, you should definitely make sure that they get obsessed with minimums, you know,
meaning making sure that they're eating enough.
And especially young girls where we see, obviously, during pubescence, hormonal and bone density
issues are the first, this is where they can emerge for the first time that will last the
lifelong.
So, you know, I think, Terry, while some folks might say, wow, that's really intense that
she taught her kid how to do macros, on the flip side, it's a way of educating your daughter.
And it's great that she's using those tools to enhance her soccer career.
That's awesome.
I love that you said that because the first thing we did discover when she started using
the tracker was how underfed she actually was.
She didn't know what she should eat and how much of it she should eat.
And there's always this fear, right, that I'm eating too much.
But essentially that how that shows up on the field is that you're fatigued really quickly.
You have zero energy and you can't perform.
And then, you know, people start looking for the most, you know, out there answer, you
know, what's wrong with me?
What's wrong with me?
You're hungry.
Yes, your body's looking for fuel that is not there.
That's what it is.
Yeah.
So you're you're absolutely right.
And, you know, I've worked with kids in this capacity, I said, for years, and I can count
on one hand, one literal hand in hundreds, how many kids are actually overfed or overnourished
versus those that are actually underfed, undernourished or have, you know, when we say undernourished,
don't aren't meeting their nutrient requirements.
So yeah, it's a it's a far greater problem on the other side, believe me, especially
for athletic kids.
So you know, we've had a wonderful conversation here today, Terry, and your story, I'm sure,
is inspiring and relatable for so many women.
And I thank you for being candid with some of your struggles.
What would you consider to be your 40s formula?
You started this journey in your 40s.
You finished it in your 40s.
What is kind of the the nuts and bolts of what you can tell women to achieve similar
results in their 40s?
Cut out the stuff you don't want to be doing anymore.
Right.
So there's a lot of women transitioning from the workplace because they don't want their
energy drained in places where they're not being appreciated.
Don't be afraid to make bold, drastic changes.
Sometimes it takes 40 years, 45 years, whatever that is, to discover what your actual purpose
in life is, to discover what you're meant to do.
And each one of us has a gift that we can bring to the world.
And maybe now is your time.
So if you feel that pull towards a different calling, don't be afraid.
The universe will help you if you are properly aligned with that.
That's number two.
I see that a lot.
A lot of women spend the majority of their lives being miserable.
And that creates a cascade of other problems that are health related.
And the third is take care of yourself now, because when you're 60 years old, when you're
80 years old, when you're 100 years old, you're going to look back at this time and be grateful
that you took a pause, you took care of yourself, you changed what you had to change, and you're
going to live a healthy, happy, fulfilled, content life rather than live a life with
regret.
Oh, girl, I love it.
Cut what is not serving you anymore.
Do not be afraid to make the big and drastic changes that you need and do it now.
Your future self will thank you.
Yeah.
Terry, we have loved having you on the podcast today.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your experience, and again, your journey.
We appreciate it so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
It was a pleasure being here.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.
After talking to our amazing guests all day in studio, we need a good drink to refocus
and let's be honest, we could use a dash more energy too.
Oh, I totally feel that.
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up crashing hard.
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This is Paul, our editor.
He's a 25 year old unmarried Singaporean guy listening to the ramblings of 12 older
women on everything from menopause to weightlifting to sex.
So Paul, what's your thoughts on today's conversation?
Personally, I can't imagine shredding 80 kilos of... 80 kilos?
No, no, no, that's wrong.
80 pounds of weight, which is maybe about 35 kilos of weight in your forties.
And I would imagine it's actually a lot of weight and a lot of hard work, a lot of sweat
and time and sheer determination.
So kudos to you, Terry.
And of course, wishing everyone out there all the best with your weight loss and strength
training journeys.
See ya.
Guys, you know how much we love coffee?
And if you want to show us some love, you know you can get us one.
Just visit buymeacoffee.com slash the forties formula.
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Bye.
Are you anywhere near Montclair?
That's where one of my best friends lives.
Yes, actually about I would say 30 minutes from Montclair.
Okay.
And again, I've never been to Montclair and mind you, but I know that that's where she
moved out of, she left the city or left, left, you know, the main city, I guess.
Yeah.
It's a very pretty area.
Oh, it's, it looks beautiful.
And I know, I mean, I know what I know about is I know that you have all the resources
there.
You know, you've got the Rutgers Institute there to do all your metabolic testing.
It's a wonderful place health wise to live, which we'll get into.
Yeah, I've never been Jersey.
Yeah, no, I've been to New York, Manhattan, but never to Jersey.
Maybe maybe there's a place I need to visit.
Are you a recovering New Yorker, Terry?
Yes, I am.
So I lived and worked in New York for probably about 15 years, and then migrated to New Jersey.
So what I am what you call bridge and tunnel people.
Yes, you are.
I didn't say you said it.