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We are Glowing UP! with Phyllis Hanson Ansusinha. A fitness leader in the industry for nearly four decades, Phyllis has been a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers covering issues including nutrition, women’s health, fitness and aging. We talk about how self-image and confidence can hold you back from achieving your goal in life and her debut novel Glowing UP!
#glowingup #fitness #achieveyourgoals
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0:00
hello everyone karen glasser here and welcome to the author spotlight interviews with best-selling authors
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from all around the world today's show is sponsored by the online author's office a platform for aspiring writers
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who seek that quantum leap to marketing their books so make sure you say hi in the comments and tell us where you are
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tuning in from i'm very excited about our guest today i am welcoming creator and author of glowing up
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phyllis and susina to the show a fitness leader in the industry for nearly four decades phyllis has worked
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with clients in both group and on one-on-one settings a country a contribute to many magazines
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and newspapers throughout the year she's covered issues from nutrition women's health to fitness and aging glowing up
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is her debut novel and i know that she's looking forward to releasing a whole bunch of other books in the future so
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without further ado welcome to the show hi phyllis hello good morning from
1:00
bangkok thank you for having me today i'm so excited to be here i am delighted to have you on the show and we're just
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gonna like start with your name because we actually were laughing about this i was laughing beforehand how do you say
1:12
your name aunt susina so i got it down where is where's the name from you did beautifully by the way um
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so the last name is ty and i know i don't look an inch or ounce of tie
1:25
but my husband is thai and i opted to take on his last name i thought it was a cool name it is uh
1:32
yes and the interesting thing about his last name or about thai last names in
1:38
general is that not much over a hundred years ago um thai people did not have
1:43
last names interesting isn't that and and of course they had a
1:48
lot of similar first names so i'm sure it got very confusing as to who was who after a while and so the
1:54
king decided um that he would start to grant last names
1:59
to people and at first it was only to nobility and to people
2:06
that were highly highly regarded um in in his country or in his city and so
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my last name is one of the very first last names that were granted in thailand and it means um house of the
2:20
noble lion yes everybody drinks thai beer and they're familiar with uh sinha or sing
2:27
beer that is actually a derivative of the last name which means lion
2:35
wow wow well i'm i'm glad i was like able to say the name i was going to take out the
2:41
you know the easy way and just do your your middle last name that that you had from before but i'm really glad that i
2:46
did it thank you for sharing that you learned something every day so
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i'm just going to start by asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself your background how did you come to today
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how did i come to today um i actually grew up in a very very small
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rural town in northern minnesota so for those that might be listening outside of the
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usa that's in the very middle upper part of the u.s it's very cold there
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and and i'm one of actually 11 children oh god bless you god bless your mom
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yeah and i'm kind of right smack in the middle actually i'm at the end of the first part of the family in the
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beginning of the second part of the family also there's like a little gap in there and um
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i was just kind of lost i guess i was very lost in this big family i was premature
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so physically i was very slow in development and developing and and so bashful so shy
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that um my grandparents would actually have to like pay me to speak to them
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well maybe that's why you did it because it was a great job i didn't realize it then but now
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so it bothered me growing up you know going to school and feeling so shy
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and and not having confidence and and not being strong being very weak i was
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even though i was a preemie i was very um gangly tall
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and and thin at the time and not found so much anymore but um
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but i didn't have strength and so when it came to sports i really struggled um i
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could run and i could i could do hurdles and different things with track and field that i
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was more successful at but when it came to baseball basketball lift anything i
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really struggled and i knew somehow i knew even though that was way back in the 60s and 70s
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i knew that i needed to have strength for some reason and it was my ninth grade year i went i
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signed up for my gym class was going to be weightlifting 101 and i was so excited
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the equipment was quite archaic i went into the weightlifting room and
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the coach he was the football coach gym teacher laughed at me
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and he said you can drop this class right now because you're not going to be able to
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those are fighting words and all the guys in the class started laughing as well you know you know you
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know how it can be i got a lot of razzing and being not very confident i went out
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beat red you know with my tail between my legs tears running down my face and i
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changed the class but i never forgot that and i thought someday
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i am going to be lifting weights and i'm going to show mr you know who
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um a thing or two and so as soon as i had completed high school and i moved to a little bit
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bigger city which was the one of the bigger cities in the northern part of minnesota um and there was a ymca and a gal had an
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instructor had invited me in to teach or not to teach to uh to take a class
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aerobics class and um i eventually wandered into the weight
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room which was down in the basement and it smelled like a wrestling room if you remember that
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was not pleasant and again very archaic equipment um but i was bound and determined i was
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going to figure out how to do this and one of my friends her husband was a former bodybuilder and she's like i know
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a few things we're going to go in after hours and i'm going to you you know a couple things well
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uh that lasted maybe three exercises and then she said hey you know it's happy hour don't
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and after about two three times i thought okay i'm not going to learn to lift weights if we keep going to happy
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hour and having a beer and then went into the weight room and
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was working on my own and at first the guys in there did everything they could to get rid of me i
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think they thought i was there to you know find a boyfriend or something and
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uh i just stuck with it and a a gal happened to be there that was a bodybuilder and she's like let me help
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you and eventually they accepted me and that was
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something that one of the things that really changed my life right then and there i love that i love that so
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you got into the fitness world and we're going to talk about that in a minute but i do want to talk about really what
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you're here for and that is your book um how long have you been writing or i i know this is your first book but how
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long has it taken for that first book to get to be published i actually i've been writing little
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stories as a child right i would i would create stories and i would tell stories to my younger siblings and and my
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children and then i started being asked to write articles fitness articles for different magazines
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local magazines in wisconsin at that time i was living in wisconsin and then moving
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to bangkok thailand there's some different expat magazines and they're like can you could you write
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some articles about women's health could you write some articles about fitness you know and and and i was so happy to
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do so because i love to write and uh and then you know at 50
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already 10 years ago or more um i had i wasn't here then at that point
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in time but i had a checklist of things that i wanted to do um in the second half of my life
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and writing was one of them to write my first book and finally
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after moving to bangkok and finding that my whole life was a little bit upside down i couldn't work
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very easily anyway it's very difficult to work here as a foreigner in thailand and so i thought okay this is a good
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time for me to actually start to to write and i didn't know what to write you know what am i going to write
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do i do i do some fiction what do i do and i thought well the easiest thing for me to start with would be
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health and wellness because that's been my life for the last 40 years would you say that was your inspiration then the
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fact that that had been your life and it was a natural you know go to the next step and write a book on this
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yes yes that was my inspiration um in good part the other part of it was over
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the years working with hundreds of clients um because i was the fitness director at the gym so a lot of people
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always came to my desk first before they went into the gym or off to work with another personal trainer
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and um and i had people just crumble in front of me and their confidence wasn't there
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they hated themselves you know they beat up on themselves and i thought you know what that was me a long time ago
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and with fitness and and changing my whole approach on on on my life with
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activity and wellness um i was able to gain a lot of confidence and can i do
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this for others and so a lot of the book tells not only my story about evolving
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as the shy bashful girl into a woman up in front of on a stage
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teaching people to um also being able to take that and nurture and help others
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grow and lift them up along the way with you we don't want to go alone right right
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you know if we're just if you're just tuning in right now we are talking to phyllis about her new book uh that is
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like out any day now kind of thing um and it's called glowing up where does the name come from
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um i think that i thought i thought real hard about that as far as a title it took me some time
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and then i felt like i personally glowed from
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what i gained from the inside out you know and um
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and then of course growing up you know growing up shy and having to grow up
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using my health and fitness as a way for me as a stepping stone for me to gain
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confidence and so then that's where i came up with growing up so what kind of topics are are people
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going to read in this book what are you covering i'm covering um besides my own
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personal story um i'm covering stories of of some of my clients that have had
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amazing transformations you know losing more than a hundred pounds wow
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i've had three i can name three clients that have lost over 100 pounds which is a really
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difficult thing to do so it's talking about them it's talking
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about those clients that came to me maybe they had just had a stroke heart attacks and they're
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they're using a walker they can't get around very well so the stories about their life and how
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we were able to take health and nutrition and exercise and get them from the wheelchair from
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the walker and then actually on fitness equipment and moving weights around and
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finding their own vitality that must make you feel so fulfilled though being able to help others like
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this it is it is so fulfilling it's one of the most besides being a mother it's
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like one of the most fulfilling things in my life and um i always wondered what i wanted to be
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when i grew up you know and when i was growing up and i the gym in the midwest
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it just wasn't a career at that point in time as a young adult and i dabbled in different things i was
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in law enforcement for a while and wow and
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and i i just didn't feel like that was me and then i realized you know as i
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started teaching fitness classes and connecting with people and then started as a personal trainer that you know i
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could make a full-time career out of this and and i love it how exciting uh for those of you who are
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wondering how you can go pre-order the book you can do that right now by going to glowingup.me just wanted to throw
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that in there um i know that you've had some exciting things happen since this book came about
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tell us a little bit about it oh yes lots of exciting things you know we have uh um thailand has been in a
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very strict lockdown and we've not
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we have not really been able to travel we knew that if we decided to go to the us or or to the uk to visit our children
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that are scattered abroad that we could be stuck abroad especially that first year
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and a lot of my friends were stuck abroad for almost a year before they could get back into thailand
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and we knew we knew we couldn't do that with my husband's work and with my dog who is like
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he's so attached to me that it would be really devastating it's hard enough on him when i leave for a short time but i
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finally um just returned from a trip to scotland
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to spend almost two weeks with my sons oh how fun and how wonderful
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it was absolutely amazing and they had planned every single day for me
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um very active days and i thought wow i if i was not working out if i was not in
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shape i would not be able to keep up with them because we were climbing mountains and hills and
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wow every day how wonderful how wonderful it's nice when you finally can get back
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out i i know and especially seeing your kids and i know what it was like for me and mike we all live in the state so
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it's not even like you where we would get stuck somewhere else but here we were locked down too and we weren't
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flying and doing anything so i'm i'm so thrilled for you that you had an opportunity to visit
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why do you do what you do i know that fitness changed your life but
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why do you do this um that's a really good question because a lot of people feel like exercise hurts
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it's not enjoyable for me it's very very enjoyable um yes
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sometimes it hurts um so so being active
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gives me energy it gives me a glow it um helps me stay stay or keep up with my my
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sons obviously that was important to me but to know that um i can give that gift
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to other people and you know if they're recovering from a heart attack and they
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maybe only have one hope um you know and the doctors have said you've got to turn your life around
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that's really important to me and then i recently added um uh during
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lockdown i added a lot of courses you know that i did online right and recently did a life and health coaching
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course which i will be taking my exam for because i realized that physically i can't
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continue in over the next 10 years i anticipate there's going to be certain
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things that my body's just not going to be able to do whereas but i can still help people in other
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ways and i can still guide them with their life and give them show them you know
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different ways that they can improve their their lifestyle or or just find
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happiness in life you know one of the things that i read about you is that you were insecure and you were shy
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yes i find that hard to believe right now but was it part of what you were doing the
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fitness and all the other things is that helped you get out of that because clearly you're not shy at this point and
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it doesn't look like you're insecure so did this help getting you out of your comfort zone it absolutely did i had
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moved to that new community and um i had met this fitness instructor on the beach actually
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and um and she was very vibrant and bubbly and she's like hey come to my
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class and and and my sister was like that's so much so and she you know it
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was like they were they were like famous you know in the comprehension
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and yeah so i went and i went to her for her first class and i had like a
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sweatshirt on to here and i had sweatpants you know i was just covered head to toe i was so scared and i don't
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know anything and um i had two left feet but i kept coming back because it seemed to be so
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much fun and it was it was giving me something um
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internally that that just woke me up and i thought i really this dancing i i not
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that i never danced before but usually you're dancing at a barn and you're being bothered by people or or it
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involves all of have a fun them and i don't need to be hassled by
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anybody or drink anything and and so then um probably maybe a month into the class the
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instructor she said to me you know you should teach class wow i was like no no and she said and
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you should buy a leotard because that's what we were back then you should buy a leotard and show off that amazing body
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of yours like jane fonda you could be a jane fonda right
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yes so i was like okay so i bought a leotard that went up to here and had long sleeves
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and eventually she got me to take the pants off you know and go without sleeves and uh and then and then it was
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like unleash the lion you know so well there you go the lion
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your name there you go there you go um you have said that self-image and
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confidence can hold you back from losing weight or even gaining weight yes why do you say that
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i say that because of our self-talk um so
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one of the things i found and one of the things that i work with right away when i start working with clients is we start
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to change the language in their head and the language you know that they're speaking to themselves
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about themselves um and i always say you know would you would you talk to your best friend like
19:54
this would you insult them the way that you're insulting yourself your your body's not going to respond to you and
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you continue to abuse it even though you might be verbally or you might be
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abusing it with food which is quite often but then you're verbally abusing
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it so we start to change the talk first and you know little just a little
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meditation or mantras that i have them start with so that they start to change their language
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and be kinder to themselves and then once you're nicer to yourself
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usually you'll start to see a change physically as well and
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you're not beating yourself up so you're not grabbing that tub of ice cream out of the freezer
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or you know the chocolates or whatever might be that is your thing
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and so then we can start to really get into the the deep work and make the changes in life well you even go as far
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as say it it helps you to achieve your goals in life from having you can have
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healthy and happy relationships with your partners and friends as well as careers so this is the whole gamut it's
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not just it's not just fitness but it's fitness for the whole self exactly exactly i once had um i was
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teaching a group training class and the it was becoming very successful um rather rather than one-on-one
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personal training it was small group training and my uh owner of the gym said hey let's put a brochure together and
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promote our group training as well can you get a testimonial so i asked a few of the ladies that had
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had you know they dropped about 40 pounds and they were looking pretty good and i said hey would you mind writing a
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testimonial that we could put on the brochure and the one gal she said you know i'll
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think about it and let me talk to you tomorrow and so
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she went home that next morning i had a phone call from her husband and i thought
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[Laughter] i understand you want a testimonial he's
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like i'm pretty sure that you can't put this in your in your brochure but he said i want to thank you because
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my wife has always had to have clothes on and the lights off when we want to be
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intimate and he said now she walks around without her clothes and lights up
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and used a big change in our life and i want to thank you for that wow
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wow and did you put that on the book in the book not on the brochure
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but in but in the book so you talk about pillars in the fitness industry what is a pillar and how many
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are there okay well depending on who you're speaking to there's pillars or there's
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different very variants that you need to have to put a wellness program or your health
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program together and um i address probably more than most
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people because i do like to put the mind body together with it so your first color
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that you want to want to address probably now i would change my talk and
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i would normally would say nutrition but now i would say it's it's your self-talk
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yeah what's happening in your mind so that's your first pillar your second pillar then is we address nutrition
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so we start to look at and sometimes people are are afraid because they're going to have to really
23:28
change their diet and so typically what i like to do is just say let's look at what you're eating now because if i give
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you a menu and it's totally different than what you're used to eating you're not gonna probably not gonna
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follow it you know you're gonna be missing your food it's too much of a shock so we look at what they've been
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eating and we just start to make little tweaks we get them i get them looking at healthier
23:55
options and actually adjusting to something healthier some of my clients
24:00
they only eat vegetables if it's loaded with cheese and all kinds of things you know so and it loses the point there
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right so we start to learn to
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appreciate the taste of food as it as it is in its own natural state and that can
24:19
be a really really long process you know so maybe it's like maybe it's like maybe we just sprinkle a
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little cheese on to begin with and eventually cheese off and we find other healthier ways to prepare it so we look at the
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nutrition and then we look at cardiovascular training
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because even though you're going to hear a lot of controversy right now i think in the fitness industry you're going to
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hear a lot of people say oh you don't need cardio you just need strength training um i still feel it's really
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important for the heart and the lungs and the vascular system to really get your your blood pumping your heart
24:56
pumping a little bit and um and and if we look at that as the most important
25:02
benefit that's that's a huge benefit that's a huge benefit but
25:07
the side effect is you burn some calories you know when when that's happening
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so i've always thought it's an all-over kind of of exercise for your body i walk
25:19
i i actually walk and i power walk i do you know three miles a day and we do it really really fast and i get my you know
25:26
my uh blood pressure up or is my heart rate up rather not my blood pressure my heart rate and all of that and i it
25:32
makes me feel like i'm in good shape yeah you look phenomenal
25:38
and all i do is walk now i used to lift weights okay i used when i used to do you know power lifting and the whole thing and my
25:46
trainer used to say for a 50 year old you're you're pretty good and he says not just for a 50 year old i should get
25:53
some of my 30 year old so i think the message is it doesn't matter how old you are right
25:58
that's right that's right my first client was 79. there you go yeah there we go
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so i know there's other pillars but i i want you don't have to do all the pillars at one time you say choose one
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pillar to start with yes when you when i introduce everything that they've got to change in their life
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it's like whoa i can't i can't do all that so we pick one thing that they feel that they're going to be
26:22
most successful at and we start with that start with that and then you know then you start to feel
26:29
good like you maybe maybe it is your nutrition and you're starting to see that you've
26:36
dropped a couple pounds your pants are fitting better your maybe a little bit of muscle definition is showing and then
26:44
um you get inspired and you're like okay what's next right so then we introduce the next thing you
26:50
know is it going to be neutral is it going to be strength training is it going to be cardiovascular training
26:56
you know so we just take it a little at a time i have some people that are raring and ready to go
27:03
and they do everything and right stick with it but honestly most people will
27:08
fall off the wagon somewhere along the way it you hit the wall okay yeah and that's and that's why you say pick one
27:13
don't don't it's the same thing when you say don't don't uh change a diet everything all at once
27:19
it's you add things right so i think it's probably similar to that you know i like to ask all my authors
27:25
if they if they ever get writer's block because i always get really interesting answers so phyllis have you ever had
27:30
writer's block is that something that happens with you it does absolutely you know especially i
27:37
think when the pressure is on you know when when um your publishers and your editors are
27:43
going okay what's next we're ready for the next chapter and you're like okay what you know
27:49
what do i want to say from here you know or you might have things that are really
27:55
stressful happening in your life that just prevent you from letting your mind
28:01
kind of um flow and i think the best the best thing that i found is just to just go ahead and start writing something and
28:07
there might be one word one word that will inspire you and then you can take it from there and create you know a
28:14
whole chapter off from that one word so i know you you're you're excited that you're gonna eventually do other books
28:21
are they gonna be on the same topic of fitness and health or are you gonna branch out in a different direction
28:27
i will i may do more fitness and health but honestly i will probably branch out
28:33
in other directions um like i said i i love i love fiction and mystery and um
28:40
you know um so and my son is actually a producer a film producer one of the one
28:46
of the ones i went to visit in scotland and and there's that little thought in my head that's like what if i could write
28:52
something a screenplay or something right yes i just met
28:57
a screen there a very very well-known screenplay writer at uh the awards
29:03
ceremony for uh his uh his mini series that he produced and and she was the the
29:08
writer and um and it was i just was picking her brain because i wanted to know how how
29:14
do you do this when you know so um that would be fun and exciting oh exciting i i love that i love that for
29:21
those of you who are tuning in and watching the show whether it's live or or on replay at another date we are
29:28
talking with phyllis about her uh book that's coming out it's not quite out if you
29:35
can't get it at amazon right today when we're recording but you can go and
29:41
pre-order it and i encourage everyone to go do that at glowingup.me you can also follow phyllis
29:47
on instagram at fit philly notice it's a phph and also on facebook at
29:54
phyllis.hanson.ansucena i said it yes you did it just it just flowed right off
30:00
right off my lips any last minute thoughts phyllis that you'd like to share with our audience
30:06
about anything yes um i would like to just for those that are listening that
30:12
maybe have either fallen into a slump with their wellness which i think happened for a lot of people um during
30:18
the pandemic it's it's not too late um and as i mentioned my first client i
30:24
ever worked with was 79 years old she you know was we did everything you know and at at 82
30:32
she was taking four exercise classes a day not i wasn't encouraging that by mind you but
30:38
but i figured at 82 she could do what she wanted and it's not too late to make a chain
30:45
with your health and with your body so don't give up and you know read the book
30:50
and and i hope that uh there will be a workbook with it actually as well oh awesome awesome awesome we'll make sure
30:55
to add it to um the information on the show when the world comes out thank you phyllis i appreciate you
31:02
getting up at a god-awful hour to be on this show and and to talk to us about your book very very excited for you
31:09
congratulations and i wish you only the best as you move forward in whatever
31:14
next books you do and whatever you do on your journey you're going to stay in touch with us because we want to make sure that we know where you go with all
31:20
of this and we want to thank our audience you have a choice as to where you spend your
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time you chose to spend it today with phyllis and me today and we are eternally grateful so go out give
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somebody an awesome day and we'll see you next time on the author spotlight goodbye everyone
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