# Training for Old Age

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 11 Mar 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/8f55e0c5-cff5-4043-9772-b40100af18f6/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

When Kylie hit perimenopause, her body stopped responding the way it used to. The weight kept climbing. Energy disappeared. And after years of trying everything, she started seriously considering surgery, injections, and other extreme options. Then something unexpected happened. In just 10 weeks, without surgery or drastic diets, she began reversing years of frustration - and the results shocked even her. In this deeply personal episode, Justin and Kylie pull back the curtain on Kylie’s health reset: the frustration, the turning point, and the simple habits that are finally working after decades of struggle. If you’ve ever felt like your body is working against you, this conversation will feel both honest and hopeful. KEY POINTS • Why perimenopause can make weight loss feel impossible • The moment Kylie seriously considered surgery and medical interventions • The surprising habit that changed everything: drinking more water • Why “the scale” can be the worst measurement of progress • The power of doing hard things with someone else • Why most short-term fitness challenges fail • How small consistent habits beat extreme solutions every time ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Build knowledge. Understand how your body works—especially during hormonal changes. • Choose movement you enjoy. If you hate it, you won’t stick with it. • Do it with someone. Consistency is easier when commitment is shared. • Track progress beyond the scale. Photos and measurements tell a more accurate story. • Focus on consistency, not intensity. Long-term adherence beats short-term extremes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: On the Happy Families podcast, Kylie and I have decided
[0:08] Speaker 1: that we'd like to pull back the curtain a little more,
[0:10] Speaker 1: share a touch more of ourselves in the hope that
[0:12] Speaker 1: can make a difference in your life. This year, missus
[0:16] Speaker 1: Happy Families, mum of six kids, has embarked on a
[0:21] Speaker 1: what would you call it, Kylie well being, self improvement,
[0:24] Speaker 1: fitness journey, all of the above.
[0:27] Speaker 2: I am training for old age. That is my that's
[0:31] Speaker 2: my catchphrase. It's not very exciting, is it.
[0:34] Speaker 1: I love it. And we're going to talk to you
[0:35] Speaker 1: about the wins and losses and the extraordinary progress that
[0:40] Speaker 1: Kylie has made. We know that this is one of
[0:42] Speaker 1: those conversations that people have all the time, especially mum's
[0:45] Speaker 1: conversations around body image, conversations around feeling good in your skin,
[0:49] Speaker 1: conversations about what happens after you have babies and you
[0:53] Speaker 1: just don't have.
[0:53] Speaker 2: Time perry menopause. She wrecks havoc on your life.
[0:59] Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about all because I think
[1:01] Speaker 1: that it's reasonable to say that in the first ten
[1:03] Speaker 1: weeks of this year, you have done something that you
[1:05] Speaker 1: never thought you could do again, which is get amazing results.
[1:10] Speaker 1: All of that to come as Missus Happy Families opens
[1:13] Speaker 1: up about weight loss on the Happy Families podcast. Next,
[1:19] Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Happy Families podcast, where you
[1:21] Speaker 1: get real parenting solutions every single day. This is Australia's
[1:24] Speaker 1: most download of parenting podcasts, where Justin and Kylie calls
[1:26] Speaker 1: some parents of six kids. Not so much parenting solutions today,
[1:30] Speaker 1: Missus Happy Families, rather a conversation about your your journey.
[1:35] Speaker 1: I don't like the word journey. It's one of those airy,
[1:37] Speaker 1: fairy woo woo words. But let's go with it anyway,
[1:40] Speaker 1: your journey with weight. Set the scene. Where does this
[1:43] Speaker 1: all start?
[1:44] Speaker 2: Well, I want to take you back to the very beginning.
[1:46] Speaker 2: You and I we got married. I weighed about fifty five,
[1:50] Speaker 2: anywhere between fifty five and fifty seven, depending on what
[1:53] Speaker 2: day and what I did.
[1:54] Speaker 1: And so for context, you are five foot ten. I
[2:00] Speaker 1: don't know what that is in centimeters, one hundred and
[2:01] Speaker 1: seventy six hundred and seventy eight centimeters, and you were
[2:05] Speaker 1: in the mid fifties, supermodel, skinny, teeny teeny tiny.
[2:10] Speaker 2: When I had our first child, I put on a
[2:13] Speaker 2: total of eight kilos.
[2:15] Speaker 1: And she weighed something like five of those kilos, and
[2:19] Speaker 1: then there was the after birth and the placentro and
[2:20] Speaker 1: all that sort of stuff.
[2:21] Speaker 2: So within six weeks I was back in my old clothes,
[2:25] Speaker 2: feeling like my old self. But three years later, when
[2:28] Speaker 2: I fell pregnant with baby number two, I put on
[2:31] Speaker 2: twenty kilos. I felt like just I sneezed and it
[2:33] Speaker 2: was there. And I fell pregnant again very very shortly
[2:37] Speaker 2: after that, so I only lost ten kilos with her
[2:40] Speaker 2: and then put another twenty kilos. So by the time
[2:43] Speaker 2: we'd had baby number three, I was already sitting at
[2:45] Speaker 2: about ninety five kilos, and over the ensuing fifteen to
[2:52] Speaker 2: twenty years, I have bounced back and forth between that
[2:56] Speaker 2: kind of seventy eight to eighty kilos up to to
[3:00] Speaker 2: date was almost one hundred kilos.
[3:02] Speaker 1: So there was one section, maybe fifteen years ago where
[3:05] Speaker 1: you got really consistent, really fit, started exercising literally every
[3:09] Speaker 1: single day with a friend when we were living in Wollongong.
[3:11] Speaker 1: Shout out to a Lissa because we know a listener
[3:13] Speaker 1: and David still listen to the pod even all these
[3:15] Speaker 1: years later, which we really appreciate. And you drop back
[3:17] Speaker 1: down to something that was in the mid.
[3:19] Speaker 2: Seventies which is around thirty kilos with her help, it's.
[3:23] Speaker 1: Around your healthy weight range, right, Like, if you plug
[3:26] Speaker 1: it all into the computer systems and things, they'll usually
[3:28] Speaker 1: tell you that that's somewhere around where you're supposed to be.
[3:31] Speaker 1: So let's talk about now the last couple of years
[3:35] Speaker 1: perimenopause and higher levels of dissatisfaction.
[3:39] Speaker 2: I don't think there is a single person I've spoken
[3:41] Speaker 2: to who has anything nice to say about perimenoporse.
[3:44] Speaker 1: Nobody says I was so excited for this, all these changes,
[3:47] Speaker 1: they're just great.
[3:49] Speaker 2: All the changes have been so much to take in.
[3:53] Speaker 1: Incidentally, when I share a well being chart that looks
[3:56] Speaker 1: at people in different age groups in terms of their
[3:59] Speaker 1: rates of mental illness and their well being, we've got
[4:02] Speaker 1: a really big spike with mental illness challenges in our
[4:05] Speaker 1: young people, and then things sort of settled down from
[4:07] Speaker 1: about the age of thirty, and then for females in
[4:10] Speaker 1: the forty five to fifty four age range, there's just
[4:13] Speaker 1: this massive mental illness spike. Depression, anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction, all
[4:19] Speaker 1: of the bad stuff and none of the good stuff.
[4:21] Speaker 1: And I always pointed out, now that we've been through this,
[4:23] Speaker 1: I always pointed out and say what do you think
[4:25] Speaker 1: is going on here? For women? And the whole audience
[4:27] Speaker 1: just erupts. The men look, the men look dazed and confused.
[4:29] Speaker 1: They're like, I don't know what's going on? What's going on?
[4:30] Speaker 2: What's this?
[4:31] Speaker 1: And all the women are just going, oh my goodness. Yeah.
[4:34] Speaker 1: And one there's always one person in the crowd who
[4:37] Speaker 1: will shout it out out loud as like, so that
[4:39] Speaker 1: everybody there's no confusion perimenopause. She will never say it softly.
[4:44] Speaker 1: It's always loud, and then hilarity ensues as we realize
[4:49] Speaker 1: just how impactful it is.
[4:51] Speaker 2: So for the last couple of years, I have actually
[4:53] Speaker 2: got to a point where I was feeling completely helpless,
[4:56] Speaker 2: completely hopeless, and just felt I was destined to live
[5:00] Speaker 2: at this life of this big, uncomfortable, cumbersome body of
[5:05] Speaker 2: mine that was just not aging well at all. Like
[5:11] Speaker 2: I'm talking about the ability to be flexible and just
[5:16] Speaker 2: move comfortably in your own skin. Sitting was hard, standing
[5:20] Speaker 2: was hard, bending was hard, all of it.
[5:23] Speaker 1: And at the risk of saying something uncomfortable and perhaps
[5:25] Speaker 1: not the most polite, You've watched your mum go through this, right,
[5:29] Speaker 1: And you always said, I don't want to be like mum,
[5:31] Speaker 1: and yet it was starting to happen. But you started
[5:36] Speaker 1: having some conversation with some friends, and I think this
[5:38] Speaker 1: is the really important part of this discussion that kind
[5:42] Speaker 1: of gets us to where we are. Talk us through
[5:44] Speaker 1: the conversations you started having with several of your friends
[5:47] Speaker 1: around you.
[5:48] Speaker 2: So one of my friends had just recently had a
[5:50] Speaker 2: tummy tuck, and she was just in seventh Heaven just
[5:54] Speaker 2: talking about how for the first time she felt comfortable
[5:57] Speaker 2: being back in her jeans and she was just so excited.
[6:01] Speaker 2: And it got me thinking. I thought, what would that
[6:04] Speaker 2: mean for me if I could just have somebody take
[6:07] Speaker 2: it all away. At the same time, I had a
[6:10] Speaker 2: couple of other friends who had decided to go down
[6:13] Speaker 2: the gastric banding.
[6:15] Speaker 1: So that's the thing where they put bands around your stomach,
[6:18] Speaker 1: literally shrink your stomach so you can't eat as much food.
[6:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And thought about that, and I watched one
[6:25] Speaker 2: of my friends in particular, she could be a poster
[6:28] Speaker 2: child for this procedure, like for when it works, she
[6:31] Speaker 2: looks amazing, she is living her best life. It's like
[6:34] Speaker 2: she's got a new lease of life.
[6:36] Speaker 1: She doesn't get to eat much food, though she doesn't
[6:38] Speaker 1: get to eat much because the whole idea is your
[6:40] Speaker 1: stomach is small and the only way you can stay
[6:41] Speaker 1: that size is to restrict your calories. Yeah.
[6:44] Speaker 2: And then there were a few other friends who had
[6:46] Speaker 2: decided to actually try the weight loss.
[6:48] Speaker 1: Injections, so the gp ones Yeah. Yeah.
[6:52] Speaker 2: And so I was kind of just mulling over all
[6:54] Speaker 2: of these options and none of them felt good in
[6:57] Speaker 2: my skin, Like I just it didn't feel good, but
[7:01] Speaker 2: I felt like there was no other option available to me.
[7:05] Speaker 2: I had been moving my body regularly. I felt like
[7:08] Speaker 2: I had a really well balanced diet. I knew that
[7:10] Speaker 2: I was eating probably more sugar than I should, but
[7:13] Speaker 2: overall I was getting lots of fruits and vegetables, I
[7:15] Speaker 2: was eating good meats, and I felt like across the board,
[7:19] Speaker 2: I was doing okay.
[7:20] Speaker 1: So at this point, you go and see the doctor
[7:22] Speaker 1: to discuss what you're thinking. After the break, we need
[7:25] Speaker 1: to talk about your doctor's response and what you decided
[7:30] Speaker 1: to do instead. We're back. This is the Happy Families
[7:40] Speaker 1: podcast where you get real parenting, real life solutions, real
[7:45] Speaker 1: way loss solutions every single day when you listen to
[7:47] Speaker 1: the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us Kylie, You've
[7:52] Speaker 1: listened to all of your friends. They're talking about how
[7:53] Speaker 1: they're doing all of these I don't know if the
[7:56] Speaker 1: word is radical or extreme because they're so commonplace now,
[7:59] Speaker 1: but certainly they're pretty invasive. They're quite intensive.
[8:02] Speaker 2: Think about a tummy touch. You're literally cutting your body
[8:04] Speaker 2: in half.
[8:05] Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to call that extreme. I know it's commonplace,
[8:07] Speaker 1: but it is still pretty extreme.
[8:08] Speaker 2: Like you go gastric banding, You're literally tying a rubber
[8:12] Speaker 2: band around your stomach.
[8:14] Speaker 1: And I need to be really careful with how I
[8:17] Speaker 1: say this because I don't want to come across as
[8:20] Speaker 1: insensitive or inappropriate in any way. I've always been a
[8:25] Speaker 1: We've always been a family that teaches the kids we
[8:27] Speaker 1: can do hard things and if you're going to do something,
[8:31] Speaker 1: you want to do it, it's the right way. The
[8:33] Speaker 1: right word I'm looking for, Like, there's ways that you
[8:37] Speaker 1: can do things that are a little bit harder, but
[8:38] Speaker 1: you'll usually get a better payoff by doing it. There's
[8:41] Speaker 1: no triumph without the trial. You've got to love the hills.
[8:43] Speaker 1: Resilience off and doesn't feel like you're being resilient. We've
[8:45] Speaker 1: got all these things that we talk to the kids
[8:47] Speaker 1: about all the time. So when you were talking about
[8:49] Speaker 1: these things, I basically said to you, you get to choose,
[8:52] Speaker 1: Like I'm not going to tell you one way or
[8:53] Speaker 1: the other. But I still feel like if we can
[8:56] Speaker 1: just dial in our our systems, our protocol, our eating,
[9:00] Speaker 1: and our exercise, I think that we can sort this
[9:04] Speaker 1: out without having to do something so extreme. And you
[9:07] Speaker 1: said to me, my body just doesn't work like everybody
[9:09] Speaker 1: else's bodies. Because I said that the basic equation is
[9:12] Speaker 1: calories in need to be lower than calories out, and
[9:16] Speaker 1: I just have to.
[9:16] Speaker 2: Highlight at this point, you and I would go and
[9:19] Speaker 2: do the same amount of exercise. You eat twice as
[9:21] Speaker 2: much as I eat, and you would drop kilos while
[9:25] Speaker 2: I was gaining them.
[9:26] Speaker 1: It doesn't feel fair. And so you were saying, well,
[9:29] Speaker 1: I'm going through p perimenopause and my anatomy and my biology.
[9:33] Speaker 1: It doesn't do what normal humans do because perimenopause is
[9:36] Speaker 1: not a human thing that humans have to go through.
[9:38] Speaker 1: It was just and I don't know, I'm not an expert,
[9:41] Speaker 1: and that I've got a PhD in psychology, I don't
[9:42] Speaker 1: know human systems like that. But I said, why don't
[9:48] Speaker 1: you just go and have a chat with the doctor.
[9:49] Speaker 1: In my mind, I thought the doctor was going to say,
[9:52] Speaker 1: Justin's right, just go and exercise, get your diet under control,
[9:56] Speaker 1: and you'll be just fine. What happened with the doctor.
[10:00] Speaker 2: About eighteen months ago. I decided to book in have
[10:02] Speaker 2: a chat with her and tell her what I was
[10:05] Speaker 2: feeling and what I was thinking. At that point, I
[10:07] Speaker 2: was leaning towards a tummy tuck, and I talked her
[10:10] Speaker 2: through my reasoning. I talked to her through I guess
[10:13] Speaker 2: that hopelessness that I was feeling the fact that my
[10:16] Speaker 2: hormones were just running havoc, and I just I felt,
[10:19] Speaker 2: I felt really just despondent in my being. And she
[10:25] Speaker 2: completely agreed that that was the right thing for me
[10:29] Speaker 2: to do. Yeah. So we talked briefly about my food intake,
[10:34] Speaker 2: we talked briefly about my exercise, but at no point
[10:39] Speaker 2: was there any exploration into what I meant when I
[10:43] Speaker 2: said I've tried everything.
[10:45] Speaker 1: Yeah, So I want to be sensitive to we know,
[10:47] Speaker 1: we get emails regularly from doctors and pediatricians and so on.
[10:51] Speaker 1: I want to be sensitive that we're not throwing doctors
[10:54] Speaker 1: under the bus here, but what we are highlighting is
[10:56] Speaker 1: that the medical system is not designed for what people
[10:58] Speaker 1: like Peter A. Tia and Andrew Hueman would call what
[11:02] Speaker 1: medicine three point zero. It's still very much intervention, pharmacological
[11:08] Speaker 1: and surgical responses to challenges, whereas we would probably prefer
[11:15] Speaker 1: to have a doctor say, well, I'm not a dietitian,
[11:18] Speaker 1: I'm not a nutritionist.
[11:19] Speaker 2: Maybe you should see it.
[11:20] Speaker 1: Maybe you could see one go and try something before
[11:22] Speaker 1: we start sawing your body in half, so that we
[11:24] Speaker 1: can make these really significant interventions. So the GP said,
[11:31] Speaker 1: let's get you off to the specialist and get this
[11:32] Speaker 1: locked in.
[11:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, would you like a referral? I said, you know what,
[11:35] Speaker 2: I'm just going to sit on this for a little
[11:36] Speaker 2: bit longer. This is a really big decision. I'll come
[11:38] Speaker 2: back to you if I need that. And so over
[11:41] Speaker 2: the next few months, as I continued to have conversations
[11:43] Speaker 2: with friends and get more and more frustrated with my
[11:45] Speaker 2: body and what it was doing and not doing, I
[11:50] Speaker 2: started to wonder if there was a different way, And
[11:54] Speaker 2: out of the blue, one of my friends decided to
[11:56] Speaker 2: do one of those eight week challenges at the gym
[11:59] Speaker 2: right and I was completely unaware, but She had been
[12:02] Speaker 2: part of a bigger conversation with a group of friends,
[12:06] Speaker 2: and she decided at the end of it that she
[12:08] Speaker 2: would post her before and after photos. They'd obviously had
[12:12] Speaker 2: a conversation with that I wasn't privy to. And when
[12:15] Speaker 2: I saw those photos, knowing full well that she's living
[12:18] Speaker 2: life exactly like me and feeling all the same things
[12:21] Speaker 2: that I'm feeling.
[12:22] Speaker 1: Big family, trying to run a business, stretched like crazy,
[12:26] Speaker 1: not enough time, not enough money, not enough anything.
[12:28] Speaker 2: Eight weeks it was chalk and cheese what she'd achieved.
[12:32] Speaker 2: It was still obvious that there was a long way
[12:33] Speaker 2: for her to go, but there was physical change in
[12:37] Speaker 2: her body, and it was so inspiring that I literally
[12:40] Speaker 2: said to her, how do I do what you just?
[12:42] Speaker 1: Yeah? I want what you're having.
[12:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah. And so she said, well, actually there's
[12:46] Speaker 2: another talent starting at the beginning of the year. I'm
[12:48] Speaker 2: thinking of signing up for it again. And I said, well,
[12:51] Speaker 2: I'm in. I'm in. All the way I came home,
[12:54] Speaker 2: I talked to you about it, I shared the photos.
[12:56] Speaker 1: And I was Debbie Downer, you were a bit I
[13:00] Speaker 1: just said, I don't feel like these and again, if
[13:03] Speaker 1: these work for you, I want to be sensitive. I'm
[13:05] Speaker 1: not saying there's a right or wrong here. We're just
[13:07] Speaker 1: sharing what our experience was. My concern was that these
[13:11] Speaker 1: kinds of challenges are often not sustainable. You're supposed to
[13:16] Speaker 1: put your body through all of this stuff for eight
[13:18] Speaker 1: weeks and then everything's supposed to, I don't know, be better.
[13:22] Speaker 1: You've created these new habits, and as it turned out
[13:25] Speaker 1: that friend, everything that she'd lost she put back on
[13:27] Speaker 1: before the next day we challenge commenced, which kind of
[13:31] Speaker 1: I looked at you and said, this is what I'm
[13:32] Speaker 1: talking about. I'm not convinced this is going to be
[13:34] Speaker 1: the right way to go for us. It might be
[13:36] Speaker 1: fine for other people, but I don't think that's the
[13:38] Speaker 1: right thing for us.
[13:39] Speaker 2: However, in spite of all of your poo pooing, poo
[13:43] Speaker 2: pooing about ten of us decided that we were going
[13:47] Speaker 2: to sign up together. Meantime, you and I started talking
[13:51] Speaker 2: about what this year would look like.
[13:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, so we did this quarterly get away. We go
[13:54] Speaker 1: away for one or two nights. We have a conversation
[13:56] Speaker 1: about what our goals are. Every quarter we review what
[13:59] Speaker 1: we've been doing and what we are planning to do.
[14:01] Speaker 1: And we set up literally an implementation plan to run
[14:05] Speaker 1: that strategy so that we can achieve our goals. And
[14:07] Speaker 1: so in what was it mid to late December, just
[14:09] Speaker 1: before Christmas, we went away and had two nights, and
[14:13] Speaker 1: the bulk of the conversation for you at least, was
[14:16] Speaker 1: built around what was going to be the eight week challenge,
[14:19] Speaker 1: but then we kind of changed our mind.
[14:21] Speaker 2: The thing that stands out to me the most about
[14:23] Speaker 2: that conversation was the very first question. I asked you,
[14:26] Speaker 2: if you could pick two or three words that would
[14:29] Speaker 2: describe what twenty twenty six would look like, what would
[14:33] Speaker 2: those words be?
[14:34] Speaker 1: And I groaned and went, ah, I hate doing these
[14:36] Speaker 1: word things, but fine, And I think that the first
[14:40] Speaker 1: one that I said was vitality. Yeah, because I had
[14:43] Speaker 1: just come off six weeks of recovering from food poisoning
[14:46] Speaker 1: and had lost seven kilos, but I felt horrible. I
[14:48] Speaker 1: still couldn't eat, and yeah, I just wanted to feel
[14:52] Speaker 1: vital and strong again. And the second one that I
[14:55] Speaker 1: chose was the three with vitality, intension, and connection.
[15:00] Speaker 2: That became the foundation for how we looked at this year.
[15:07] Speaker 2: And this is like a really important part of the
[15:10] Speaker 2: journey you've got to pick things that you love doing firstly,
[15:14] Speaker 2: and secondly, have a friend.
[15:17] Speaker 1: To get someone because when you've got that commitment with
[15:21] Speaker 1: someone and you've got that appointment, you just show up,
[15:23] Speaker 1: You just go and do it.
[15:24] Speaker 2: I get out of bed each morning because I know
[15:26] Speaker 2: that you're going to be there and we're going to
[15:27] Speaker 2: do a bike ride together, Whereas it's so much harder
[15:30] Speaker 2: if I'm getting up at the crack of dawn to
[15:33] Speaker 2: just go and push out some.
[15:35] Speaker 1: Cases like keep I'm saying resilience is relational. It's so
[15:38] Speaker 1: much easier to do this stuff when you've got somebody
[15:40] Speaker 1: who's by your side. A quick word on the gym
[15:43] Speaker 1: thing as well. I just don't like gyms, and I've
[15:46] Speaker 1: had this on and off relationship with Jim's for decades
[15:49] Speaker 1: because I don't like gyms. But I've been really enamored by,
[15:52] Speaker 1: really captured by gymnasts. Like I watched what gymnasts can
[15:58] Speaker 1: do and how strong they are. It's just body weight stuff, right,
[16:01] Speaker 1: they're on the rings and they're they're able to do
[16:03] Speaker 1: these incredible things. And I discovered calisthenics. I remember years
[16:08] Speaker 1: ago somebody was telling me about calisthenics. And I rolled
[16:10] Speaker 1: my eyes. I'm like, oh, my goodness, how lame. I've
[16:13] Speaker 1: discovered calisthenics, and I'm like, these these people are so
[16:17] Speaker 1: staggeringly strong.
[16:19] Speaker 2: You go down a rabbit hole of reels when you wells.
[16:24] Speaker 1: And so I've been looking on and off for the
[16:28] Speaker 1: last four or five years for a gym on the
[16:30] Speaker 1: Sunshine Coast that meets that sort of calisthenic emphasis. And
[16:36] Speaker 1: I don't know how I've never found it before, but
[16:38] Speaker 1: there's a gym that started about three years ago that
[16:40] Speaker 1: is just down the road from us. I called, I
[16:43] Speaker 1: had a chat, told him what were after he said, yeah,
[16:45] Speaker 1: come on in, I reckon, I can fit you in.
[16:48] Speaker 1: And it was just the best and it has been
[16:52] Speaker 1: ever since.
[16:53] Speaker 2: And then two other things that I think were really important.
[16:57] Speaker 2: I increased my water consumption. This is something that anybody
[17:01] Speaker 2: can do. And I had no idea how totally dehydrated
[17:08] Speaker 2: every cell in my body was because I don't drink
[17:11] Speaker 2: enough water. So I went from drinking probably an average
[17:14] Speaker 2: of one to two glasses of water a day up
[17:17] Speaker 2: to nearly three liters of water a day. The difference
[17:21] Speaker 2: that that has made, like that is power. Just that
[17:25] Speaker 2: one decision and the last decision I made was eliminating
[17:31] Speaker 2: process sugars. Refined sugars.
[17:33] Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're not fanatical about it.
[17:35] Speaker 2: I was about to say, I'm not perfect at it.
[17:37] Speaker 2: But previous to that decision, refined sugars were in my
[17:41] Speaker 2: every day and probably every meal content.
[17:46] Speaker 1: So we're kind of out of time here. But if
[17:47] Speaker 1: I was to highlight what I've seen for eight weeks
[17:51] Speaker 1: or ten weeks basically from somewhere between Christmas and New
[17:55] Speaker 1: Year right up to now ten maybe eleven weeks now,
[17:57] Speaker 1: you have consistently ridden your bike about a half hundred
[18:00] Speaker 1: and fifty to two hundred k's a week. You have
[18:02] Speaker 1: consistently gone to the gym three days a week. You've
[18:05] Speaker 1: got a program, You've got a personal trainer who is
[18:08] Speaker 1: guiding you through that and making sure that you're doing
[18:10] Speaker 1: everything right and being consistent. You've got resilience is relational.
[18:15] Speaker 1: At least three or four nights a week, but sometimes more.
[18:17] Speaker 1: You and I go for a walk with the dog
[18:19] Speaker 1: after the dishes are done for about four or five
[18:21] Speaker 1: k's and that is a game changing. You've been off
[18:24] Speaker 1: the process sugars. You're drinking water and the other thing
[18:29] Speaker 1: that I just love that you've done is you started
[18:31] Speaker 1: taking photos and doing measurements when this began.
[18:35] Speaker 2: So because my friends were doing that eight week challenge,
[18:38] Speaker 2: I after you and I discussed what we were doing,
[18:40] Speaker 2: and I was making good progress. Within two weeks, I
[18:43] Speaker 2: was feeling better in myself, and we decided that I
[18:47] Speaker 2: would I would join the little group, the little band
[18:50] Speaker 2: of women, and we would have conversations, but that I
[18:52] Speaker 2: was going to continue doing eight weeks of my own challenge,
[18:55] Speaker 2: my own work alongside them. And part of the challenge
[18:58] Speaker 2: was you had to take a photo diary each Sunday.
[19:00] Speaker 2: You had to check in with photos of front back.
[19:04] Speaker 1: Inside, front, back, and side.
[19:06] Speaker 2: And then take measurements of your arm, thigh, waist, and
[19:11] Speaker 2: hip measurements. And so I decided that if it was
[19:15] Speaker 2: good enough for them, that I would do that. And
[19:16] Speaker 2: I'm so glad I did, because it's so easy to
[19:19] Speaker 2: look in the mirror on a day to day basis
[19:22] Speaker 2: and actually.
[19:24] Speaker 1: Not to feel like you're not doing anything.
[19:26] Speaker 2: And if I relied only on the scales, they're the
[19:30] Speaker 2: worst thing in the whole wide world.
[19:32] Speaker 1: So we are out of time, but give us the results.
[19:36] Speaker 1: This whole conversation is a built up to the results
[19:38] Speaker 1: and after ten or eleven weeks, where are you? How's
[19:44] Speaker 1: this going for you? Oh? Sorry, you've also been getting
[19:46] Speaker 1: You've had this thing called an in body scan, which
[19:48] Speaker 1: is kind of like a you can go and spend
[19:50] Speaker 1: five hundred dollars on those big expensive Dexa scans, or
[19:53] Speaker 1: you can go and spend fifty nine dollars on an
[19:55] Speaker 1: in body scan. So you had one a few weeks
[19:58] Speaker 1: in and then you had another one just in last
[20:00] Speaker 1: week or two. What are your results?
[20:03] Speaker 2: So I've lost a total of four kilos of total
[20:07] Speaker 2: body fat mass. When she actually handed me the prototype
[20:12] Speaker 2: fat prototype of two point three kilos, she looked at me.
[20:16] Speaker 2: She said, coylie, you've lost nearly two of these. When
[20:19] Speaker 2: I felt it, like the weight of it number one,
[20:22] Speaker 2: the size of it number two, I literally wanted to
[20:25] Speaker 2: cry because I can't see that on my body, Like
[20:30] Speaker 2: I can see that my shape has changed.
[20:32] Speaker 1: We can see it in the photos.
[20:33] Speaker 2: But I can't. It was like when they first handed
[20:36] Speaker 2: me a baby, where did she come from? Ye?
[20:38] Speaker 1: Like?
[20:38] Speaker 2: How did she fit inside me? Like I'm looking at
[20:40] Speaker 2: this weight and the recognition that I'm no longer carrying
[20:45] Speaker 2: that I'm no longer having to walk that around every
[20:49] Speaker 2: day was really really empowering. But the biggest number that
[20:53] Speaker 2: was the scariest to see on the page when I
[20:55] Speaker 2: had my first GAM was my visceral fat. So that's
[20:57] Speaker 2: the unhealthy fat that's literally tucked in around all of
[21:01] Speaker 2: your organis.
[21:02] Speaker 1: So that's the internal fat that you don't actually see.
[21:04] Speaker 1: It's wrapping around your heart and your lungs, and it's
[21:06] Speaker 1: wrapping around your kidney and your liver.
[21:07] Speaker 2: So that's what causes all the bad stuff diabetes, heart disease,
[21:11] Speaker 2: all of that.
[21:12] Speaker 1: So subcutaneous fat is the fat that you can see,
[21:15] Speaker 1: but viscral fat is deep down on the inside so
[21:17] Speaker 1: you don't actually see. That, is what you're saying.
[21:19] Speaker 2: That's what causes the big fat tummy as Perryman pause,
[21:23] Speaker 2: a woman where no one for a hormonal belly, that's what.
[21:26] Speaker 1: So it's visceral fat.
[21:27] Speaker 2: It's all viscraal fat.
[21:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, So what was the number?
[21:30] Speaker 2: It was nearly double what it would be to be
[21:32] Speaker 2: on the absolute highest end of healthy, right, not the
[21:37] Speaker 2: low end, the high end. So I was looking at
[21:39] Speaker 2: about one hundred and eighty centimeters squared of visceral fat,
[21:43] Speaker 2: A hundred or below is what I'm aiming for.
[21:46] Speaker 1: So is that the start or is that the one way?
[21:47] Speaker 2: That was at the start, and I knew it was
[21:50] Speaker 2: going to be bad, but to actually see it on
[21:54] Speaker 2: a page was a real eye opener. But the wonderful
[21:59] Speaker 2: thing at that time the guy who helped me with
[22:03] Speaker 2: the scan, he just said, Kylie, you keep doing what
[22:05] Speaker 2: you're doing, and he said that number is going to shift.
[22:08] Speaker 2: Not like the scales where I'm seeing three hundred grams
[22:10] Speaker 2: a week or something. He said, you're going to see
[22:12] Speaker 2: a massive shift. So after eight weeks, I decided I
[22:15] Speaker 2: really wanted to see if I had done that, because
[22:17] Speaker 2: the scales are not kind. It's a very very slow grind.
[22:21] Speaker 2: I've lost nearly twenty five centimeters squared. This are all fat.
[22:26] Speaker 1: So you've gone for all eight weeks, You've gone for
[22:28] Speaker 1: like one hundred and eighty two, one hundred and fifties
[22:31] Speaker 1: fifty something six. I think, wow, yeah.
[22:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, which means if I can continue doing what I'm
[22:37] Speaker 2: doing within the next sixteen weeks, I could be very
[22:42] Speaker 2: close to one hundred. Like That's how tangible that is
[22:46] Speaker 2: to me now, whereas before it just felt so overwhelming.
[22:51] Speaker 2: So unachievable, and my body wasn't working.
[22:54] Speaker 1: So let's just also, what we've discovered is that the
[22:57] Speaker 1: number on the scale is not that important. What matters
[22:59] Speaker 1: is what's going on the inside. But you've dropped from
[23:02] Speaker 1: nearly one hundred kilos to you're tapping on the door
[23:05] Speaker 1: of the ninety ones. Now you're in the very low
[23:07] Speaker 1: ninety two range in that sort of eight to ten
[23:10] Speaker 1: week period. And you've also gained muscle.
[23:14] Speaker 2: Mass three hundred grams.
[23:16] Speaker 1: Right okay, which again means you're losing weight, but you're
[23:18] Speaker 1: gaining weight, you gaining the right.
[23:19] Speaker 2: I thought it was a pretty puny amount until she
[23:22] Speaker 2: acknowledged to me that for a woman, between one kilo
[23:27] Speaker 2: and one point two kilos a year is phenomenal.
[23:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, So you've done a third of that in eight, nine,
[23:35] Speaker 1: ten weeks. So let's wrap this up. Take home messages
[23:38] Speaker 1: for people who are listening and going, oh gee, I
[23:40] Speaker 1: really want to do that, but I was going to
[23:42] Speaker 1: do the eight week challenge, or I'm I'm just so
[23:44] Speaker 1: time poor, I'm so stuck. What do you think has
[23:47] Speaker 1: made this work for you when previously it hasn't worked,
[23:50] Speaker 1: or you've just sort of thought, No, I just need
[23:52] Speaker 1: to book in and take some pills or do something
[23:55] Speaker 1: more invasive.
[23:56] Speaker 2: So the first thing for me is knowledge is power.
[23:59] Speaker 2: The more you know how your body works, the more
[24:02] Speaker 2: competent you feel to do what is needed to meet
[24:06] Speaker 2: those requirements. The second thing is adherence, Like, we just
[24:11] Speaker 2: have to be consistent over time. I didn't just put
[24:16] Speaker 2: on thirty or forty kilos overnight. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
[24:20] Speaker 2: so this has been a twenty year You were hearing.
[24:23] Speaker 1: To that process for twenty years? Yes, yeah, So how
[24:26] Speaker 1: long do you need to adhere to this process to
[24:28] Speaker 1: reverse what took twenty years to do?
[24:30] Speaker 2: And while an eight week challenge might be a great
[24:32] Speaker 2: booster to get you started, and for me it was motivation.
[24:35] Speaker 2: I saw what my friend achieved. Funnily enough, out of
[24:39] Speaker 2: the ten women that signed up to do that challenge,
[24:43] Speaker 2: there was only one or two who actually adhered to
[24:46] Speaker 2: the challenge for the most part. They were definitely not
[24:49] Speaker 2: one hundred percent, but ninety five percent of them. Yeah,
[24:54] Speaker 2: they gave up, They fell off because life is challenging.
[24:58] Speaker 1: Okay, so take our messages. You need knowledge is power.
[25:01] Speaker 1: You've got to be able to do something that you
[25:02] Speaker 1: enjoy doing. Do it with someone, and here like sticking
[25:07] Speaker 1: with stick stick with the plan, stick with it at a.
[25:10] Speaker 2: Photo diary on the photo powerful.
[25:13] Speaker 1: And take those measurements literally, get the little journal out
[25:15] Speaker 1: and take the measurements. All right, We've gone way over time,
[25:18] Speaker 1: but I just feel like the story is inspiring. I
[25:20] Speaker 1: feel like it's important, and I know how often people
[25:23] Speaker 1: will have these conversations and say it and not what
[25:24] Speaker 1: I'm supposed to do. We're not telling you what to do,
[25:27] Speaker 1: but we do want to share with you that this
[25:28] Speaker 1: is working. A real treat. Find someone you can work with,
[25:31] Speaker 1: do something that you really want to do, pay to
[25:34] Speaker 1: get some help if your finances will allow it, and
[25:37] Speaker 1: then just stick at it and don't expect it to
[25:39] Speaker 1: happen overnight, because it doesn't. But my goodness, you're looking fantastic.
[25:45] Speaker 1: Thanks can't wait to see what happens over the next
[25:48] Speaker 1: eight or ten weeks. We'll keep you updated because we
[25:51] Speaker 1: just feel like this is something that is inspiring and
[25:53] Speaker 1: exciting and we'd love to share that with you. Thanks
[25:55] Speaker 1: so much for listening. We hope that you've got something
[25:56] Speaker 1: out of it. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by
[25:58] Speaker 1: Justin Roland from Bridge Meat Mumhammonds provides our additional admin
[26:03] Speaker 1: and research support. If you'd like more. In fun to
[26:05] Speaker 1: make your family happier, visit us at happy families dot
[26:07] Speaker 1: com dot u

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