Never to Late to Become the Best Version of You

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase Podcast we have with us today Linda Terjesen who is a weight loss expert for women over 50 certified nutritionist, online health and life coach and a certified positive psychology coach. Welcome to the show Linda. We're really happy to have you here. Her tagline.

Is it's never too late to become the best version of you, and I just love that being over 60 my.

Well, I totally feel it. So welcome to the show.

Thank you so much, Jill. I really appreciate it and I'm happy to be here with you. So thanks for having me.

So tell us how.

You got started in this. What's what's your story?

Ohh well there's there's a few stories, but the main story, my passion behind helping others get healthier. Specifically women over 50 like myself, I'm 56.

Is my only brother passed away from a sudden heart attack 18 years ago when he was only 45?

And it really woke me up in different ways. I was I considered myself healthy, but there's always room for improvement.

And I just really took a closer look at my own health, and it led me to this work of helping others because.

If I knew then what I know now, I firmly believe I could have saved my brother's life and he was one that would listen and implement and take action and stuff. So he's my wife. That keeps he keeps me going every day.

That's very tragic, but it's an all too common thing. 20 years ago, we really didn't know what we know now and you know, it's just like, so much more information has become available to us.

Yeah.

That just.

Just wasn't around. So you're you. You specialize in women over 50 is there.

A reason for that?

Well, the main reason I'm over 50 myself, so it's very relatable and my clients love that because a lot of my clients, you know with weight loss, they've obviously tried a lot of different things and usually they've also hired a personal trainer and a gym.

And the personal trainers are majority male and typically always younger, so they don't have anything relatable with them and they tend to be pushed too hard.

They've also worked with like family members, especially like daughters and sons that are like, oh, I'll help you.

Get in shape.

Mom and same thing. They get pushed too hard.

So with me, they can really relate because I'm the same age, I have lost 20 lbs. I have maintained that weight loss for over 24 years.

And the main thing that I want for my clients is to maintain the weight loss because we can all lose weight. But how many times have you lost those same 10 lbs over and over again? And I want to stop that and be able to maintain it so.

The main reason is I'm in that age bracket myself and the majority of my clients are anywhere from like 50 to about mid 60s.

And the other reason is, and it has to do with my tagline, right? That it's never too late.

I got my mom started in the gym when she was 57 years old.

Now she was petite. She ate very healthy.

But she didn't exercise as far as like scheduled structured exercise, like going to a gym. So I got her start in the gym and she went consistency consistently for over 30 years.

Five to six days a week, lifting weights, getting strong, improving her confidence, meeting new friends, and she always called the gym her lifesaver.

That's really awesome.

Yeah, and she inspired a lot of my clients. I have clients that like, I want to work with you because of your mom and how you've helped your mom. And she's my age. And everybody loved my mom. Yeah, she she passed away, unfortunately, two years ago now.

But she probably had a really good quality of life up until the end because when you exercise regularly and you eat well, it just makes it makes your life better.

We we may be living longer, but that last 10 years is usually not a very good quality of life for most people, mostly because they didn't start early enough doing the the little things and it really isn't a lot of hard things I mean.

Yeah.

Right, right.

You may talk about going to the gym, but there's there's things you can do even without going to the gym that.

Of course.

You know, really help people. It sounds like that you lost that 20 lbs after menopause, is that correct?

Or did you lose it before menopause?

No. So I'm 56 and I've maintained the weight loss for over 24 years. So I lost it in my.

OK.

Early 30s, but it took a long time because like a lot of women, I thought I knew what to do. And you know, I was doing everything right. But if I think about it, I wasn't because then it wouldn't have taken that long.

So that's another thing I help women with a better strategy that's more effective and efficient because there are many ways to lose weight, but the most important it is to sustain it. So you're not going on that roller coaster ride, losing, gaining, losing, gaining and just making it harder on yourself.

Your mindset, your metabolism, your hormones, all of that. So I lost it early on, but I feel a lot of women think it's it's too hard. Is it even possible to lose weight? And you're 50s and 60s.

And it is and it doesn't have to be that hard. Like you mentioned, there are a lot of things we can do other than going to the gym. Most of my clients start out with walking, working out at home, but having a plan and just moving their body just slightly.

Overtime doing that consistently, they start feeling so much better and a lot of these bodily aches and pains start going away and then they feel better and then they're excited.

And sleeping better. It's just just I I walk every day and it's like if I miss a day walk.

Yes.

Looking.

I can tell that night when I'm trying to sleep it just it makes such a huge difference so.

Yeah. And do you go outside and walk?

Yeah, I walk 3 miles a day. I walk my dogs.

Yeah.

And.

That's wonderful. And also being outside because you get that fresh air, which is very different than walking inside on a treadmill all the time. So it's nice just to get out and and I do that as well. So it's it's I.

My husband.

Love it? Yeah.

We decided to throw a puppy into the mix to, you know, just like ramp up the the exercise and and the obstacles to.

That's wonderful.

Yes, yes. What kind of puppy?

He's a cross between a a Labradoodle and a luellen setter, so he's pretty big. He looks kind of like a.

Big.

Poodle, but he he's goofy as I'll get out and he he likes to.

OK.

Run along and and.

Chomp at the grass as he's going along the way and I can't tell you how many times he's knocked me down, which is like, that's not a good thing at my age, but.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

But he's so much fun and we have to walk him. It's just like if you don't have any choice, he's a big dog. He has to get out. He has to move every day, whether it's raining or snowing or whatever. Yeah, he's got to be taken for a walk. So it's it's like, no excuses.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

No, like that's good.

Because it helps you get out as well, yeah.

And then we have the.

Older dog that you know.

He meanders along.

Yeah.

Ohh now that's wonderful.

Yeah, but it it doesn't have to be. You know, more back to what you're doing. It doesn't have to be hard, and it doesn't have to be painful. And it doesn't have to be stressful to make changes in your life that really do.

Give you huge paid huge dividends along the way and having somebody alongside you that can kind of show you where to get back on track because you know we all have great plans and we set out and we know we're doing everything right like you know you in the beginning when you're trying to lose all that weight.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I, you know, before you know it, you're out there in the tules and I'll just have this one handful of Cheetos, you know, which turns into half the bag because, you know, the stuff in them that tells your body no, you can keep eating. You're not.

Full yeah, it's the, you know, the intentions are always good, right? But all of my clients say what?

Really helps them the most is the accountability. And just knowing that they have support, they have a professional that they can go to and ask questions and they're not just randomly posting and asking questions on Facebook and and getting you know that random advice.

Yeah, which is at the very least contradictory. And yeah. And at the most just wrong.

So do you help people with mindset as well, I mean?

Ohh yes, mindset is the biggest piece of the puzzle.

Because unless you change your mind.

Then.

It's easy to just stay the way you are, right? Because you have been.

And thinking a certain way for a long time and it's changing those thoughts and believing something different and really, you know, believing in yourself and prioritizing yourself, which.

I also find that women over 50 have a hard time to do to prioritize themselves, to celebrate themselves, and really make that time for themselves because they're so used to spending the time, the effort, the money on everybody and everything else, and then they come last.

So working on mindset growth is very important and we do that a lot and in various ways.

And having a coach like you, it's gotta be helpful to have somebody to celebrate your wins, because I find that as you get older, it's it's easy to discount.

How much progress you're making?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes, for sure. And when I when I asked my clients, hey, you know, what's your win? Let's celebrate. And then they're like, well, they have to think. And I'm like, I know you have some wins and then they think and then they're like, well, this thing. And I'm like this is huge like what else? And it makes them think about something else. So I love celebrating my clients.

I.

Of it.

Yeah, that's it's so important that we celebrate our wins. So we recognize that little steps that are being taken. Do you focus on the scale or do you are you big on like inches and clothes fitting and?

All of it, all of it, because.

Numbers don't lie, so this scale, in my opinion, is necessary and but we don't want to let it get to our head too much and that's where working on that mindset is so important. So.

Weighing ourselves, taking bodily measurements, progress pictures, how the clothes fit all of the above is really important. And then the main thing is really how are you feeling? Because that's the end result. You know, my clients do this because they want to feel better. So focusing on how they feel.

All along the way.

Because when you feel better, you want to keep doing it, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And and recognizing that you're feeling better, I I found that.

Yeah.

You know over the.

Years there'll be times when it's like, yeah.

Nothing great happened.

When really something great happened, like I slept better. I.

Slept all night long, right?

Right, I forgot about that.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you know.

The number on the scale said something.

All the small steps.

Yeah, all the small steps lead to bigger steps, right. And even though the scale may go up and down, there can be a lot of different reasons for that. But then it's celebrating what else happen and how are you feeling? And really the work that I do with my clients, it's about building awareness.

So that they think more about, OK, what did I do? What didn't I do? What is causing the the number on the scale to fluctuate and the more they learn and they pay attention to this, then they can self correct.

Yeah, that's great. So do you do you work with groups? Do you work one-on-one? How does that all that?

Look, so I do I do both. My main program is a group program for women over 50, but then I have some women that come to me that are not over 50 or they don't want to be in a group.

Work online.

MHM.

Or I've also had, you know, men that come to me and they want help. So then I work with them privately. So it just depends what people need, what their goals are. They're, you know, limitations. If there is people maybe in a different country and they're like, oh, I'd rather just, you know, be privately working with you and.

Have a different schedule. Then you know. That's fine too. So we work around what the clients needs and goals are.

That's perfect.

Yeah.

So.

So you how would people get in touch with you about working with you?

So there's many ways my Instagram is probably the easiest to remember. It's fit with Linda Li NDA fit with Linda. I have my website which is Lt. LTE. It stands for learn to love to exercise. So Lt. LTE.

There's testimonials on there and and ways to contact me on there, and of course I'm on Facebook under my name, Linda Turgidson.

Yeah.

And you're easy to find.

Yeah.

She got your hand up in the air.

Yeah, that's what I do. Lt. Lt. learn to love, to exercise.

I love that. And you you do offer a a guide book. Let's, let's talk about diet just a little bit because we talked about exercise, we talked about mindset. Let's talk about diet. What? What are your feelings about diet and dieting?

Yeah.

And how we eat and how it affects our.

So the second most important, after the mindset is in nutrition because it's 80 to 90% of the work we can go to the gym, we can, you know, go walking, running, whatever we can exercise for hours a day. But if we don't eat very healthy, it's not going to have the same effect on our body and we're not going to feel the same.

So nutrition is very important and all of us have tried a variety of diets right over the years and it's just the more you do that.

That the more you are harming yourself, you know you get more frustrated every time. It doesn't work. It works to lose the weight, but it doesn't keep it off. So essentially it doesn't work and it's very restrictive. And that's what with me. I focus on real food and one time I had a client like she was started. She was starting to lose weight and she's like.

Oh my gosh, I'm eating real food and losing weight. Who would have thunk it?

So the nutrition is super important and you know, looking at the whole picture of the nutrition and not being so restrictive where you feel like, OK, I can't go out to dinner. You know, I can't have pizza or a glass of wine or whatever because we also want to live our lives.

While we're doing this and when we know that we don't have all those restrictions, it makes us relax more and then we can follow along and we can live our life and have fun while we're doing it.

It's a moving towards something rather than moving away from other things. When you have that approach, it's like moving towards balance in in what you're taking into your body and moving and not trying to move away from. Never eat those foods again because that's not sustainable.

Yes.

Yes.

Right, right.

No, it's not. And and that's what I wanted to be is sustainable.

When?

And a lot of you know, diets, they have restrictions and then there are a lot of health coaches that offer like a meal plan and you have to eat like this thing that's on the meal plan. And that's also restrictive and what works for one person may not work for the next person. So it's very important to customize it.

Yeah.

For each person, because everybody has different needs.

Goals. You know, I work with different religions where there's, you know, fasting periods and there's other clients that you know can't eat gluten. They can't have dairy, all these things. So it's not a cookie cutter approach, but you can have a cookie.

You know everybody, everybody's body reacts to stuff differently also, and if you can teach people how to.

Monitor how their body is reacting to what they're eating. I think that's more helpful than saying just eat these four things and I don't care if you don't like them or not. You like them or not.

Right.

Right.

Yeah, because.

Laugh, but I've seen that.

Right, right. No, it's important to pay attention to how you're feeling. And of course, nobody knows your body better than you. Yeah.

Yeah. And our tastes and and our bodies.

Requirements change as we age. Yeah, I find that the things that I ate when I was in my 40s are different than the things I ate in my 50s and 60s. It just like.

I there were things that.

I I would eat just about anything.

For a long time and now I find that you know.

I I'm coming to recognize. I just don't like some things and it's OK.

Yeah, yeah. Don't heat it if you don't like it.

And and it's OK. It's not like when we were young and we had this mentality where you have to eat everything on your plate, you know, it's OK to eat. What? You're what you want to eat on the plate. You don't have to eat everything. Even if you made it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you can always wrap it up and have it.

Later, or feed it to the tops.

Top.

Yeah, there you go.

So probably not a really good habit.

One of our dogs we call the square dog. OK. He's had one too many meals, OK.

Well, maybe more than one.

So do you offer help with for people that are maybe not really good at meal preparation?

Yes, yes.

And I am not one to. I've never actually meal prepped for the week, meaning spending an entire weekend or all day Sunday in the kitchen, chopping up everything and making little boxes to have the same thing every day during the week. And there's we don't need to do that. The main thing is have the healthy foods.

Available to.

You.

And that makes it a lot easier and I think a lot of women make it really complicated and they want to have these fancy recipes and spend a lot of time researching what to eat. What can I put together and all these little things that go into the recipe.

And then you know they're researching sometimes for hours to make one meal, and instead it's like we can make it so much simpler and the meals don't have to take a long time.

And you can make a little bit extra have leftovers the next day, but you don't need to eat the same exact thing for like five to seven days in a row. That's pretty boring, in my opinion.

Yeah, mine too. I. And at this point in life, you know, I've had lots of kids, and there were times when you have to make a lot of food because there's a lot of people.

Yeah.

Eating. But as you get older, you don't have to make so much and and you can. You can use ingredients for from like one thing in more than one dish. You don't have to make all the thing in the same dish.

Yeah.

Right.

Sure.

Yes, yes.

And then as you get older, the kids move out, right? So then it's like, OK, now I don't have to cook as much. And now I don't have to pay attention to this kid that wanted this thing. The other kid wanted this thing, you know, so it makes it easier, too.

Yeah, it does and.

And let's talk a little bit about where your metabolism is.

Uh-huh.

Because this is something that most people don't really know.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah. So as far as the metabolism, obviously it changes, but a lot of times we damage that ourselves by following all these diets.

And we make it harder on ourselves, so also with all the diets, like for example, intermittent fasting where you're only eating a certain block of time during the day.

Well, it's kind of hard to get all the nutrients that your body needs in that time period.

So when you go on all these diets, you just you make it harder for the metabolism.

You know, that's one thing and the lack of movement we all are sitting a lot more these days working from home, but we could still get up. That's one thing I love about my Apple Watch is it tells me every hour to stand up.

And I stand up many times during the hour, but it's like ohh I want to get credit for this.

One. So I'll stand up again.

Just standing up and sitting down.

Just doing little things can have a big effect on the metabolism and of course stress sleep. There's a lot of different factors that come into play.

And a lot of it happens in your muscles.

MHM.

And that's why you need to maintain muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the better your metabolism is going to be, which is why when men say just exercise more and eat less, it works for them because they have bigger muscle mass than women do.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but a lot of women are actually under eating.

Thing. So it's looking at what are you eating? How are you eating? How much are you eating and changing that and that's why I'm so fond of strength training because it helps that metabolism and it helps, you know, obviously you you grow muscles, you maintain the muscle mass, you're feeling stronger.

And needing more protein.

Yep.

That builds confidence and there's so many benefits with that, so the gym, I love the gym and.

Like I said, a lot of my clients, they start out with working out at home and you don't need to have, you know you don't have to go to the gym or have a whole bunch of equipment, just even using your own body weight can can be very helpful. But that is very important.

I've I've started this new exercise program. I've.

I've done it this whole year because a friend of mine, she was talking about doing burpees. She's like 10 years younger than I am to begin with in in much better shape. So I I designed these things that I like to call jerkies. They're children's.

Oh.

OK.

They do include the push-ups, however, and the getting up and getting down quickly for corporate did a couple other things into it. That's.

OK.

Yeah.

A little less.

Bounce intensive because I don't. I don't bounce while it.

Yeah, yeah.

My my tigress has.

Left and you don't need to and that's another thing with women as they age, they need a different exercise program than they did when they were in their 40s and 30s and 20s as they need to put less stress on their bodies. So that's why classes and a lot of these Superintendent exercises.

Are gonna actually hurt you more than her.

Help you and I don't know too many people that I actually love burpees. So and I have I have clientele ask me that when we start. Like do I have to do burpees and I'm like no I don't include the burpees in your program and they're like.

Yay.

So yeah.

I I only do 8.

OK. Freedom. Yeah.

And that's as far as I'm going to go. It doesn't take me hardly any time to do it, but I know I'm.

Right, right.

Doing it and.

It's like I did that today and it it makes me out of breath.

Yeah.

Which is like.

The goal is to just get, get things revved up in the morning and then we go for a walk and then I can get on with my day and do all these.

Other stuff, but it's.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's different ways, right that you can get your heart rate up. And even when you're out walking like what I'll do is I'll run up a bunch of stairs to get the hallway up, and then I'll run back down and, you know, so there's there's different ways to incorporate little things, but the main thing is to enjoy it because if you enjoy it.

You're gonna want to keep on doing it, but if you don't, then it's like, oh, I gotta do this again. I don't like this. Then it's good to do. And then we find excuses.

Yeah.

Yep, that's just the way it goes. And you know, if you can do 8, just do 88 is good for me. I I don't feel like I have to do 9 or 10. I don't feel like I have to get to 100 even though my friend is like she does 100. Like, good for you. I'm so happy for you. I'm. I'm happy.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh gosh.

Yeah, yeah.

You know this is sustainable, which is.

Another you know?

And also the.

The quality of what you're doing is more important than the quantity, because if you're doing an exercise and you're getting really sloppy at the end, then you're more likely to hurt yourself.

MHM.

Yeah.

Instead of doing it the correct way and going slow, which will have better benefits for you.

And rest, yes, rest is very important.

People get get into these like heavy, intense exercise routines and then forget that they need to. You know, if you're doing weightlifting, really heavy weightlifting. My husband's a weightlifter and he's always saying, you know.

Number one problem is people getting hurt and #2 problem is not, you know, you don't do this every single day.

Right, right. And not the same body parts.

And not the same body parts every.

So that's why it's important to have a strategy.

G and I have my own app where I design the exercise programs. My boyfriend uses the same app. He was never a gym goer. He's a kite surfer, a snowboarder. All the board sports very active but he wanted to go to the gym because he knew I was going there and he wanted to be with me. So he got going in the gym.

And he uses my app and he has an exercise program and he goes and he opens up the app and it's like ohh this is what I'm doing today and follows along and it makes it super simple he doesn't have.

Yeah.

To think about it.

That is, that is probably one of the the key things about your program is that it's so simple you don't have to think about what am I going to do now and having to figure out, you know, spend 20 minutes on your app trying to figure out how to do the thing properly, and then you can just like it's right there.

Dazzle.

Yeah, yeah.

It's right there. Super simple. Open up, Press start and just go, you know? So yeah, between the exercise that's customized.

Love it.

And getting the education and the guidance on nutrition, having all the mindset work, being in a like minded community, it's really an all-encompassing program that helps my clients so much. And and I just love seeing the results that they're all having.

That's awesome. So how did they get your free guide out? It's ditch the diets free guide.

Yes, I'll send you. I think I may have already, but I can resend the link if you don't.

I have the.

I do have the link and I will put it in the show notes, so if anybody's interested in finding how.

Have.

It OK.

OK, great.

To.

Lose weight without having.

To be on a strict diet.

Right, yes, yes. And they can always contact me. I have a free Facebook group where I post every day with different tips and resources and inspiration. It's Lt. LTE, so just go on to Facebook and groups and they can find that and then three to four times a year.

Good place to jump in.

I run a four week weight shed experience so I have one coming up now in May and I'll have another one coming up in the fall. So that's also something.

Yeah, and they can find out about that in your group, I'm sure. Yes. So really join in the community and and seeing what other people are doing. Great inspiration to, to get in touch with you and.

Work with you because sure that you get great results so.

Thank you. Yes.

Yes, they do.

I really appreciate you coming on and chatting with us, Linda. What's the one thing you hope the audience takes?

Away from the conversation.

Ah, the main thing is that it's never too late to get started, and I think we all know that there's no benefits to procrastinating, so just get started, do something small, you know, put your sneakers on. Go outside, walk around 10 minutes. You did something, you know.

So yeah, that was fascinating. And take some action and and celebrate yourself, yeah.

And celebrate.

Thanks for joining me.

Thank you so much, Jill. I really appreciate it.