80 Lb Perimenopausal Weight Loss After Corporate Burnout

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night. If you want a refreshing take on what's possible in perimenopause, this would be it. So if you're tired of hearing that weight gain, uncontrollable weight gain, weight gain resist— or weight loss resistance is the norm, this is your episode. You're going to hear about an 80-pound weight loss that occurred at age 42 with my current guest and what it birthed afterward. I'm Debra Atkinson, and you're listening to Flipping 50. I started this podcast over a decade ago to answer questions about fitness and menopause and beyond before you know to ask them. The goal to help accelerate your results with the science and the practical application of proven protocols while living your best life. There's no more powerful health influencer in the world than a midlife woman. It's not just you, but it's the 3 generations that you influence. My unique 40-year career, including being a university senior lecturer in kinesiology, an industry subject matter expert, an international speaker, to founder of the first and the only exclusively made-for-menopause-and-beyond fitness membership in the world. Every week I interview experts behind the science of optimal hormone-balancing fitness and longevity and share answers answers to our community's questions so you can have the vitality and the energy you want, need, and deserve. My guest today, Terri Teteosen, is 48 now, but at 42 she had a significant weight loss and 80 pounds lighter today. She's a health and fitness expert from a previous corporate mogul. She's a podcast co-host and now the founder of Thor: The House of Rose, which she'll tell you a little bit more about that name during the episode. She's got a wellness community for women over 40, so we told her she's in the right place. Terri is an ISSA certified personal trainer and nutritionist, a registered yoga teacher, and and Integrative Institute of Nutrition certified hormone specialist and emotional eating coach. She's also the host of the podcast How Good Can It Get? So in this episode, we start unpacking Terri's journey. So really, you get to know what was it like for her, how someone becomes, by the way, an emotional eating coach. In many cases, in fact, most of all of the emotional eating coaches that I've met is they are an emotional eater and have overcome it and, and/or are what some would say, just like an alcoholic, a recovering emotional eater. And certain things won't fix that, a.k.a. many of the diets you've used. So Terri was no stranger to dieting as well. So I asked her in this episode, what was it that finally flipped the switch? So you'll hear her describe that story. Terri, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you, Debra. I'm happy to be here.

I want to unpack your story. First of all, I want to talk about everything that you're doing and why and how this really unpacked itself or revealed itself to you. But I want to talk about Without further ado, because the listeners tuned in very likely curious about an 80-pound weight loss. And listeners, total transparency, when I put a weight loss like that in the title, I know you're going to open it. So there is no accident, but it is not a bait and switch. We're really going to chat about that. So at 42, Terri, you embarked on this, you know, profoundly life-altering journey and successfully shed over 80 pounds. You were in your mid-40s when that finally happened, discovering, you know, this untapped source of incredible physical, emotional strength, to use your words. Was this the first time that you tried to lose weight, or what had you tried before?

Oh my gosh, where should I start?

Oh yes, so an American woman, okay.

Oh, no, no, no. I started struggling with my weight, I would say, in my late 20s. And then I got pregnant and that sealed the deal. So the first pregnancy, I never got the original weight off. And then I walked around in maternity, maternity clothes until my second pregnancy at 35. And then it got even bigger at that point. And then I probably tried, I would, if I had to guess, at least 30 diets. So, by the time I was 37, I was 30 diets deep in. I was still wearing maternity clothes. I had 2 hospitalizations because I thought I was having heart attacks. I was pre-diabetic. I had ovarian cysts. Cysts or whatever, something was going on there, a heart murmur. And I, I'm probably forgetting another half a dozen things that were very strangely happening to me. And yeah, so that's where it all began at 37 when I realized that the whole narrative was really upside down for women in general. I was overworked, overwhelmed, overstressed. I was, uh, an overachiever as well. And on top of that, I started abusing alcohol and food, uh, just to cope with, with all of this. And that's where it all began, really. It was 37. Oh, and perimenopausal. Let me not forget that. I started perimenopause at 37. Yeah.

So what was it that— I think this is always a pivotal question. You know, when a woman has struggled, it's not been the first time she's tried. In fact, this is so funny. I very recently, I ran into clients from, from out of state who— the state I used to live in— it was a woman who I'd seen repeatedly, you know, kind of that boomerang throughout the years. She always wanted to try and she would start, but she would, she would never actually stick with it. And I ran into her in the airport and she's like, look, I finally did it. I've been slapping myself on the head thinking, I need to have her on. I need to, I need to share with other women what was it that flipped the switch? What was different for you this last time that you started? What changed for you?

So one of the first things was I, I did discover that I had an eating disorder. And so imagine being 40 years old and being told you have an eating disorder. I, I, I didn't even know such a thing existed. It was emotional eating, and I was using, essentially using food, alcohol, nicotine, all the things as a coping mechanism. But, you know, I knew about alcoholism. It runs in my family. I had awareness of that. Obviously, I knew about nicotine and all other things that are narcotics. And I didn't know though that you can use food in the same way. And so I was completely unaware. It was in my blind spot. I would be inhaling down entire jars of Nutella every night or Häagen-Dazs or whatever really gave me that feeling of changing my internal state. And so no matter what diet plan or new form of food and nutrition would come my way, I would white-knuckle it for a certain period of time. And then, of course, all hell would break loose and I would be back into the Nutella jar. When I was emotionally starved, when I suffered some type of an emotional hit, or I was too stressed, or something would happen, I would reach for that because it was better than becoming an alcoholic or better than anything else in my—

Yeah, I just want to say, kind of expressing for the listener, so in trying a new diet or a new healthy way of eating, what you were doing essentially was like taking a hammer to drive a screw. It was the wrong tool for the job, right? So if emotional eating is the thing and We will put links that will tie you to Terri, will tie you to previous episode on emotional eating. If you don't know if you are, it's worth a look. If you've tried everything and you can't figure out why you keep failing, it may be that the tool you're trying is failing you. It's not the one you really need. So when you finally realize, this is what I've got— and how did that happen, by the way? I mean, was that just reading one book after another, or what? What got you to that realization?

It was the first time I had hired a coach and I was working with someone one-on-one. I had never tried that before. I had tried literally 30 diets. There's— did you guys know there are 40,000 books on Amazon on different diets? Okay, I probably read about half of them and tried a quarter of them, and every time I did a diet, I would lose weight and then I would gain that weight back plus some. So I was, every time I dieted, it didn't never work. I just got bigger and bigger and bigger. So that realization, finally I had to accept that that was not working. Whatever the heck I was doing was not working. And so I found a coach. And when you work with a coach, you have to kind of reveal all of your demons and you get very vulnerable and they're a observing you in real time. And eventually the light was being shined upon the fact that I would succeed. So there was nothing wrong with me physically. There was nothing wrong with me hormonally. Most of us are fine in that department. I was having a completely different problem, which was, like we mentioned, um, overwhelmed, overstressed, burned out. Reaching for the food. And then once that came to light, you know, you start having more awareness towards it, right? So now you're like, oh, okay. So this is the pattern that I'm following and it's finally being revealed to me. I have better awareness of these particular little tweaks that I have in my mindset and you start catching yourself, right? So now you're like, you're thinking about diving into the Häagen-Dazs or Ben Jerry's or whatever it is. And now you're thinking, wait a minute, am I really hungry? Am I really— do I really need to eat this? Or am I looking for it as a coping mechanism and I'm looking to change my internal emotional state? And then once you get to that point, not that it's easy because it's not, Food is an addiction. There is a sugar addiction for sure, but at least you have more awareness of it and you can use different tools to get yourself out of that state.

And the one thing I want to go back to almost the beginning of what you've just said is in working with a coach, you know, I think if we're all just very honest with ourselves that occasionally we could still embark on a journey working with a coach but we still could easily play a role and not really relay what is truly going on or our deepest fears, you know. And part of that fear being, I'm gonna be judged, you know, and, and/or I just don't want this to be who I am. And, and so really saying it out loud can be So vulnerable.

It did.

You must have gotten very lucky with a coach that you felt like you could confide in right away.

I was the worst client. Yes, I was. I, I had no self-awareness, honestly. In that particular department, right? So I spent the majority of my adult, adult life and all the way into my 40s working really hard, being a workaholic, starting up businesses, working in the corporate world, having children. I had zero self-awareness. And so my initial relationship with my coach was very interesting because I would do certain things off plan, but I would hide it. I would lie about it. I would pretend it didn't happen. I would gain a few pounds and I would say to my coach, I don't know how that happened. I did everything you said. I mean, that was the— when I think back to it, I'm like, what the heck was I thinking? But that was part of the growing up in a sense, right? Yeah. Because I was allowing my teenager, in a sense, my teenager brain to hijack me in that relationship. And the way that I got lucky is that I had a coach that was a no BS woman. She called me out on every stupid little thing I said that didn't make sense. And she, she showed me in essence that this is a problem right here. You know, you're not communicating clearly. You're not being honest with yourself and with me. And my relationship with her was really a reflection of my relationship with myself.

That is amazing. That is gold. And I— the other thing I want to make sure that we relay to every listener here is that this is not because— and I'm just going to say it as bluntly as it is— this is not happening because you're dumb. This is happening to extremely intelligent, high-performing women. Terry was one of them. I mean, if you could see the accolades on her and, you know, what she was doing in the corporate world, you will know that she was just like, this is all high-functioning, at least externally. Inside, chaotic mess potentially, but nobody saw that.

Except you, right? Absolutely.

Absolutely. I, you know, I want to ask you this because I think this is often an offshoot, because if you're behaving a certain way, you're functioning through your life in a certain way, your relationships may change when you change. Was that true for you?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of relationships changed, right? So when you're, uh, taking alcohol out of your life, a lot of people go along with that. A lot of people need to be cut out of your life as well because alcohol is such a big part of our social circle. Uh, same thing with food. So when you're changing the way that you eat and you're doing something completely different, like for example, counting macros is a lot more popular today than it was, let's say, 8 years ago. Like, when I first encountered macros, I thought it was an Excel spreadsheet formula. I didn't understand. What do you mean macros?

That's so good. Yeah, we could never be friends because that is not where my brain would go, but I probably need to call you to solve all my tech problems.

But yeah, people look at you in a very odd way. You know, in the very beginning, I used to carry a scale around. So I would go to a restaurant or go out to eat, or let's say go to a friend's house. I would be bringing my food with me, especially in the beginning when I didn't really— it wasn't natural. It wasn't fluid. When you're first learning something, you have to be a lot more rigid. And so people, you know, did look at me funny, like, What the heck is she doing now?

Mm-hmm. Right. And now they're looking at you like, "I wish I would've done what she did," right? But I want to ask you something. Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate, but to my, like, separation of right brain, left brain, if you had an emotional eating issue and yet you're going, like, very regimented with weighing your food, 'To me, that seems like it might not fit. Talk to me about that.' I love this question.

So I get, I get this question a lot, and here's my answer. And I'm sorry if it offends people, but being an emotional eater, for me, back then, it meant that my emotions and my intuition told me to eat the entire cake. It told me that I was hungry and I needed to eat the entire loaf of bread or the entire jar of Nutella. That, that's what intuitively, that's what was happening. And when I discovered macros, where I was very regimented with 5 meals per day, I knew exactly how much protein, how many carbs, How much starch, how much fat. So that was a lot of food for me because I wasn't used to eating such high volume. And what it did actually, and in fact, what it did is it gave me the confidence to know that whatever my intuition was saying that I was hungry wasn't true.

That lying bitch.

Yes. Yes. Yes. She was a liar and I couldn't listen to her because I, if I did, I would be overeating, essentially.

So structure gave you freedom. Yes. I get it. Exactly. Okay. That makes so much sense. But yeah, at first glance, it feels like, "Well, that's— how's that fitting?" I want to ask you something. So you, 80 pounds plus, you know, where that was, there's something I talk about with clients and students a lot called I call it habit gravity, you know, and it can be a big limiter if you don't know that it's there lurking. You know, for, for somebody in the weight loss journey, I mean, it might be in decision-making, but it can also be, I think, pulling you back because of the way we think of ourselves. I have a psychologist friend who says we get very comfortable thinking about ourselves the way we've always thought about ourselves, which can make it really hard when we want to to actually make that change, because up here you're getting the message, no, no, no, that's not who you are. Do you experience that, or did you?

Back then, yes, I had a lot of negative self-talk.

Hey, this is Debra Atkinson. I love creating the Flipping 50 podcast for you, and I have for over a decade. I also love helping midlife women shift not only their physical energy, but their beliefs about what effective exercise looks like and how much it can positively and powerfully impact your life. How you menopause and exercise in menopause determines how you live, not just now, but decades from now. If you're not exercising right now, you're getting tired, not stronger, or you think you don't have time or the energy to exercise, do a 5-day flip with me. I'll send you one short video a day for 5 days. It's just 15 to 20 minutes long. So you can see exactly how I plan out a fitness plan for myself and for thousands of clients I've worked with. You can get this at Flipping50.com right now. What are you waiting for? Let's start flipping 50 together.

And a lot of it I believe came from fear, essentially. And a lot of it was repetitive. I read somewhere, I can't remember where, but we have about 60,000 thoughts per day and 80% of them are negative and 95% of them repeat on a daily basis. And mine were very loud. And so it's interesting because I talk about this quite frequently, what I decided at one point because they were so overwhelming and they were very chatty. And I was constantly hearing about, you know, who do you think you are and what makes you so special? You're not some kind of a celebrity or a model. You don't need to take this that far. You know, you lost 20 pounds. That's good enough. We can, we can stop now. This is craziness, right? Are you going to think you're going to work out 5 days a week for the rest of your life and eat a macro-based nutrition? That's insanity. That's not for you. Normal people don't act like this. Like this just kept going on and on and on for years, really. And then one day I decided, okay, I am going to have board meetings with all of these voices. Love it. And I invited them all. I wanted them to air their grievances. It was an open forum meeting. I wanted to hear all of it. You know, why are we unhappy? Why are we complaining? What makes us think that this is not a sustainable lifestyle? Are there other people that are doing it? Is there evidence out there in the world that this is possible? This lifestyle is attainable for people. We don't have to be that rigid, but if we want to be rigid, we can be. We can be flexible. We can be anything we want. So where that this notion or this box come from? And I invited this internal conversation almost every day until they stopped.

They got tired of meetings just like the rest of us.

So good.

That is brilliant. Oh my gosh. Okay. I want to do a little bit of what probably is going to feel like a pivot, but I want to go back to kind of weaving in your whole, your whole tapestry, which is really a part of, you know, who you are, how you got where you are. You have such a corporate background. And so I'm going to ask, when did that end? And kind of flip to, you know, what it is you're doing now and this new founding project. Where did you decide, I need to leave? Was it prior to the weight loss, during it, after it?

It was right in the middle of it. So it was literally COVID. The COVID year, 2020. And I just decided that was it. That was, I was just burned out. I simply could no longer do the functions of a very rigorous, uh, hourly work structure. So it was about 18 hours a day. I was putting in 7 days a week. I worked weekends for 10 years probably.

Do you think that— I mean, do you owe COVID a thank you? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think for a lot of people there was— it was a stimulus for change. It was like we'd all said to the universe, we need a change, and we got it, right? We got one, good, bad, or ugly. That was a great answer. Okay, but you've used all those corporate skills, you've used all that grit and ability to roll your sleeves up and know what hard work feels like. But maybe hard work— and don't let me put words in your mouth, but I know when I was working for somebody else, I still felt purpose, but I kept feeling like if I were working for myself this hard, it would feel even better. You know, that I have to believe it would work for me too, to do it. For myself, and it was so different. I mean, was there that, you know, knowing that I can do this, you know, or was there intrepidation, or where were you when you said, or did you have a plan? Did you have an exit plan starting your own business? Oh, okay, just leap.

Okay, I, I literally had no exit plan when I left that business.

Okay.

And all I knew is I could not keep going. And I just dived into health and wellness, getting my act together, getting my life together, losing the weight. And it's so interesting because a lot of people ask me, well, how do you know this is your passion and this is your purpose? How did you find it? And I thought about it a lot. And I genuinely feel like I was not looking for my purpose. I was not looking. It found me. And it was so loud and so smooth. And things just kind of lined up on their own. I almost had to do literally nothing for things to move and flow in the right direction, where I was just shocked because up until that point in my life, everything was a struggle. I had to work really hard for every single thing. And there was a lot of resistance and a lot of effort, and it was very draining. And now on the other side of this, where I'm just flowing with it, like it's literally a part of me and I am a part of it. And there's no, um, there's no resistance to any of it. There's a flow to it. If, um, at any point I feel like, oh, maybe this is not going to work out, that thought doesn't even cross my mind because it just kind of— it's, it's there.

You know, it's like the saying, you know, when you're on the right path, doors open for you that wouldn't open for somebody else. Or, you know, not that there can't be other successful coaches, or where if you're listening, we're not saying there's not a place for you too, but it's like uniquely it just happens so easily. And yeah, I love, love, love that. So awesome. So talk about this new business and when that got born. The name of it is so intriguing to me, but nowhere in my research could I find where did this name come from. So Thor, T-H-O-R, and it stands for the House of Rose. I'm sure this has a story, so do tell.

So to paint a picture, the way that you get to the property is there's a 1.1-mile very serpentine gravel road. It looks like you're in the middle of nowhere. So you drive up 1.1 miles elevation, right? So it's about, I think, 1,500-foot elevation in Tennessee. It's not much, but you're going uphill and you're not really sure where you're going to end up because it just keeps going. There's no end to the road. And then when you finally arrive, it's at the very top of the mountain. The property is surrounded by roses all around everywhere. And the way that the name came to me is I was thinking about the rose for whatever reason. And a lot of these things just kind of come to me. I don't have a logical explanation of how they just enter my mind. And so I was thinking about the rose and the rose represents love. It represents God. It is the highest vibrational frequency flower out there. And what the work that I do there is about your body, right? So the house of God, which is your body, the house of love, which is your body, and the place is surrounded by roses. Now, THOR, the way that the acronym came out, I love that because when I put the letters together, Thor represents fertility and strength and protection, and that rose represents femininity, love, grace, and all those things that are, um, not really physically— you're not able to touch. When the two come together, the masculine and the feminine, and it's all about the body, the love of your body, and embodying the divine inside of you, bringing that out So that's what— that's where, uh, it comes from, really.

Beautiful. So beautiful. So talk a little bit about what it is you do in terms of— so the property you mentioned, for listeners, talk a little bit about the retreats that you're hosting and where did that evolve. Did that come first, or did entering into coaching with people come first, or Simultaneously, they both erupted.

They, they both kind of happened simultaneously. And the, the retreats really came out of— they, they were very organic. And so, uh, about— we're going into our third year. And so the very first retreat was just friends. We were just on a girls' weekend and in overachiever fashion, I said, okay, well,, you know, why don't we, you know, find a yoga instructor? Why don't we get a massage therapist? Why don't we do some of these other modalities? Why don't we go hiking? Why don't we do all these things? And then someone mentioned after the retreat was over, you should do this all the time, Terri. And it just hit me. I was like, oh man, I really enjoyed this. And I would feel so blessed and grateful if I did get a chance to do this all the time. And that's how it all began. It was— I, I had zero intention, uh, for doing this as a business. And frankly, to me, when I call it a business, I, I feel like I'm insulting it because it's my love child, really.

That is so awesome. I love it.

So how many retreats a year do you host, or So the first year we did, I think about 8. Last year, I think we did 14. This year, I think we're at 16 and they're completely sold out. I think I only have spots in one, which is in August, and they're all closed out. And then next year, there are going to be 2 new locations, one in Sedona and currently possibly working on the South of France and maybe some conversations with a few other properties. So it's going to change locations, still keep the Tennessee location, but offer some more variety for people that want to come back.

So awesome. So I, I want to end with kind of this. I mean, you're a midlife woman who, number one, really pivoted in her own health. In her 40s, you know, so at a point where most women— not all, everybody's journey is slightly different— but you're in perimenopause, you know, and here you are really giving, also giving birth and a new start to an entire new business. What do you say to a woman who might be playing a role she doesn't really like right now, and she's, she's got an itch, but she's kind of afraid to scratch it.

Go for it. Go for it. This is our second act, ladies. We have earned the confidence to do things right, to do them well. We have earned the right to be independent at this point. We have more freedom and we really, we have better intuition.

Right?

So at this point, by the time we're 50 years old, it's our time, truly, when you think about it, to go out there and do the things that we've been holding back for lots of legitimate reasons, right? So I'm not going to discount all the reasons why we hold back, but now is the time. It's our time. You can do it.

What would you say in the the clients that you've worked with one-on-one or small groups, or women you see in your retreats, what do you think— what would you say is the number one obstacle for them, you know, maybe seeing or thinking, that's what I want over there? What, what do you think is holding them back from getting it? Uncertainty.

And it's interesting because a lot of women that come to my retreats, that's one of their transitionary periods. I hear this all the time, and if there's a wave coming that is kind of brewing underneath all the things that we're hearing, but women are taking charge of their lives. They're making bold moves. They're changing their health, their lifestyle, their careers. They're going into fields where they feel of value And it's so interesting. I mean, maybe it's because it's a fitness and wellness retreat, but I do get a lot of women that come there that are taking on this new role of service because they don't feel that their contributions in the corporate world are as appreciated or are meeting their internal values. And so I'm seeing this, it's spreading. It's amazing to watch.

So great and so wonderful to be a part of empowering it too. Terry, I'm guessing you're going to have a lot of people who want to come and find you. Where are the best places to find you?

Website? Social? You can find me on Instagram. I only have two places really. Instagram, how good can it get? That's my handle, Terry Taddeosian, and my website, thehouseofrose.com. Those are the only two places. If you'd like to email me, my email is Terry, T-E-R-R-Y, at thehouseofrose.com.

Fantastic, Terry. Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you, Debra.

It was a pleasure. Thank you so much for listening. To listen and access a decade of episodes and the show notes, visit flipping50.com, where you'll be able to find all of our prior episodes, and I made it easy for you to make the most of your listening time by selecting 5 specific areas most commonly high priorities for our community and giving you top 10 lists if you let me know you'd love them. If you know a midlife woman or a soon-to-be one who wants to optimize her midlife energy and time with the right exercise size and lifestyle changes and a mindset shift about just what is possible, share this podcast with her and I thank you. There is no more powerful health influencer in the world than you, midlife woman.