I wanna introduce my Instagram friend, we finally got to meet on zoom for the very first time just now, but we've been Instagram friends for a couple years now. I follow Lynn because she promotes joy in wellness for women over 50 and based on what you sent me, Lynn, you've been doing this online virtual coaching for over seven years.

Lynn shares her health journey, habits and inspiration on Instagram stories, videos and posts.   And so that's what prompted me to invite her to an episode of the Caregiver Cup Podcast. We are busy women that are caregiving, but we also need to pay attention to our health and our wellness and think about how we're moving our body and what we're putting into our body each and every day.

I think Lynn's gonna help us with this journey in this episode here. So, Lynn, I wanna give you a few minutes to tell folks who you are, where you live, how you started in this journey a little bit for us today. 

Lynn:  

Thank you so much first of all, for having me, I'm excited to do this.

My health and wellness journey, I mean, it's probably spanned most of my adult life, but I really got serious about it about seven years ago. I decided that I had put on about 25 pounds. I felt awful. And I was just down in the dumps and wasn't feeling good about myself and I just needed something.

There was a lady in my office where I worked at the time that she had just gotten into a program. She was a virtual health and wellness coach. So I was watching her and how happy she was, how active she was and you know  how she had the willpower not to eat all the cake at the office, everything had it , which is important.

So I decided to sign up with her and I never looked back. I joined and found a wonderful community. My niche is helping women over 50 that want to embark on a health and wellness journey. 

Cathy:  

I think when I see you Lynn you’re sharing your workouts on your Instagram stories.  You're sharing your little drinks out there and you're sharing your active life and trying to impact as many people as I can. It really is inspiring to me as well. 

I wanna ask you today, just a series of questions. And if something else comes up in our conversation, we can let it roll this way, but I'm gonna kind of gear it towards our caregivers or my caregiver audience here.

Why is your health so important to you and your clients and your clients? What gives you that pickup and what stories have you heard from your clients now about health? Do you have a story or a special thing that you've done that kind of gave you that boost?

Lynn:  

It's for me, it was just the spot that I was in and once I joined the community, it was just how much better I felt. Then when I see women that join me and probably one of the most exciting one is I had a lady in my group. She had 75 pounds. She's lost and she's been able to maintain it. It took her two years to do that, but she's still continuing on it.

Wasn't like I lose the weight and I'm done. It's all about taking baby steps and being consistent. And really, especially when you look at caregivers.  If you work outside the home as well, you have limited time. So we're doing this by working out 30 minutes a day. And you're doing it on online videos at home.

What that also leads to is you feel so good. You work your way up and then you want to do more and take more time for yourself. You don't have to exercise two hours a day because if you are a caregiver, you likely don't have the time for that.

It's all about baby steps. Maybe you start out with 10 minutes -three days a week and build from there. As you're building, there's a supportive community that every day we touch base with, which is so important to keep the motivation and the consistency going.  I could never do it on my own.

As the coach, I still count on those ladies as well. We motivate each other. It's about having that extra level of support to keep you going. 

Cathy

The visual that comes to mind is the one, when you did the dancing. Here's Lynn, you all, I'm gonna give you a picture of Lynn dancing.

She's showing the video and then she's dancing in her kitchen and I see her refrigerator behind her. And I love that because you do it in your home anywhere, anywhere you feel like it. And that's the fun part. 

Lynn:

You don't need a whole lot of space. And trust me, if you wanna do some dancing, you don't have to show it on Instagram.

I'm just having fun with it. And really, if I can, you know, if having some of that fun can help motivate. One person to get off the couch to me, it's worth it. And it's about showing that it doesn't have to be a chore. You can make it fun and just choose an exercise that works for you. 

Cathy:  

So what are some of the exercises that you do in your program?

Give me some ideas of it, because if I'm one that says I don't like to exercise, what would be something that would kind of spark me?   We've talked about dancing. So what are the other kind of things that you do? 

Lynn:  

The dancing, typically, if it's someone that hasn't exercised in a while, they're a good one to start with, to work your way up.

You can have fun. They're not too strenuous, but other ones are with weights. And when I first started seven years ago, my go-to weights were three pounds and there's no shame. In a matter of fact, I did an exercise program today, and it was a stretching, but it involved weights and just the way I was lifting them and how my body felt today, I hauled out those three pound weights.

There's strength training, where you work on your arms. There's a lot of leg work. There's stomach work. The idea is you sign up for a particular program and you get that variety. If it's a five day a week program, each day will work a different part of your body. And the exercise programs I choose purposely are no more than 30 minutes.

There's longer ones out there or shorter ones. If that's what people are interested in. 

Cathy:  

What could you say to caregivers out there that are not moving their body?  What are they going to feel? 

Lynn

It takes a transition to figure it out.  When I came back in, it felt hard. 

Cathy

What are some of the things that you feel, or what are some of the benefits of moving your body?

Lynn:  

 The largest benefit to me, to be honest, is mental health.

I woke up today as a matter of fact for no good reason, just feeling blah. It's just one of those things, not every day is sunshine and roses at all. So I thought, you know what? I know what's gonna help me. and I pressed play. I took the dog out for a short walk on a nature trail too.  They were the best things I could do, where if I didn't have that outlet, I might have just sat there and walled in that feeling all day. So mentally, you're gonna feel better if you're feeling sluggish. 

Sometimes if you've got a little bit of weight,  especially as women, it makes us not feel good inside.  So the movement and eating healthy, I found even at way back when, when I first started and just made the decision to get on the healthy train and move and eat better, I immediately felt better just by taking that first step. So to me, it's not about how you look, that's a nice benefit. But it's about how you feel inside and when you feel well mentally, it makes everything else in your life better.

Cathy

One of the biggest struggles  we as caregivers have is all of the stress and the anxiety and the worry plus anger and frustration with all of the challenges. I gotta get up and move. I gotta get up and walk to let it go and release it

I think that's an important piece and that leads me into thinking about you. You promote wellness, but nutrition is a big part of it. Hydration is a big part of it. 

We as women make bad choices, but when we make good choices, there's so many more benefits. What kind of things or advice would you have for caregivers in high stress? What should they be watching for when it comes to nutrition?

Lynn

An easy fix or easy things to do is start with  hydration -  water.  Drink a glass of water or two when you wake up in the morning  Have the water before you eat. You might not even be hungry

If you drank two glasses of water before you sat down to eat, you're probably gonna eat less because the water is going to give you a little bit of a full feeling. And just even having that hydration can make a difference in how you feel.

A lot of times having headaches is because you didn't drink enough water. And that's our body's way of telling us to drink water.

Cathy:  

And there's been so many studies to say, staying hydrated can boost your mood and can keep your energy levels up.  What else do you have for us for nutritioni? 

Lynn:  

What I would definitely watch is your carb intake and for it's, it's different for everybody on my maintenance that I'm on now, I'm only supposed to be eating two carbs a day.

It may be a ½ cup of rice and eating more veggies and fruit.  It's about proper portion sizes and fill your plate up more with vegetables and greens, then you do with the carbs by all means, have the carbs. You need them, but limit how much carbs you have.

Cathy

Fill your plate more with greens than you are with the carbs. Yeah, I have a couple things here for you. I get clients that tell me that they have to make a different menu for their loved one based on their condition. Like, let's say they have diabetes or they're going through a transplant and they have to have certain foods.

And then they say to me, I don't have time. How important is it to do your meal prep at all? Do you plan out your meals at all? What could they have? Let's say they had to make their loved one, something different and. What have you done to go ahead and eat healthy yourself?

Lynn:  

I’m with my mother and she wanted macaroni and tomatoes so I made that for her. I stopped at the store and I got myself a healthy salad and I just bought myself a piece of rotisserie chicken.

When you're in a pinch and you need to do something quick. Preparing a second meal is not always easy.   So I did go to the grocery store and I bought something healthy for myself, the rotiserie chicken and the toss salad. It was a nice healthy meal. It wasn't a lot of extra work. I know you're not gonna run into the grocery store like that all the time but to me, it's having lean cuts of meat on hand, some fresh and those frozen veggies for when you're in a hurry are key. 

For those times when you run out and don’t have a chance to get to the grocery store,  I also always have the frozen fruit on hand and I don't prepare a lot in advance, but what I make sure of is I have my fridge with the fresh veggies, the fruit. And the meat and I'll have potatoes or brown rice or something on hand for the carbs.

But my freezer is also stocked with frozen veggies and fruit, when I want something quicker. So it's just a matter of having the healthy things on hand, making sure that you have some things that are really quick to make, so you make the healthier decision. Because if it's too much work, sometimes when you're in a rush to prepare that healthy meal, you're not always going to wanna take the time.

It's also paying attention that when you eat certain things, how they make you feel, and then for the next time.  Am I gonna wanna stuff myself with a bunch of sugar? If so,  I'm gonna feel sluggish and I've got all this stuff to do, and it's just gonna make things a lot worse. So it's paying attention to how food makes you.

Cathy:

Let's say a caregiver has to be away for the entire day like an appointment or errands with their loved one and they get tied up.  How can I add my workout in that day, knowing that I'm gonna be gone all day? What can I substitute my workout with? Let's say I'm in a doctor's office and then what could I pack as healthy options?

Obviously you take your water bottle with you. Take mine everywhere. I went when Dennis was on a stem cell transplant and would, there's gotta be a place to fill it up somewhere, but what could, what suggestions would you have for women that are busy with their loved one all day and then maybe they're driving hem to therapy or whatever it would be.

Lynn:  

My best advice in that case would be as hard as it is to get up that hour earlier in the morning, get your movement in, even if it's 20 to 30 minutes, right in your own kitchen. I'm not one that likes to get up super early, but if I know I'm gonna have a busy day, I can tell myself I'm gonna exercise at the end of the day.

I know I'm not. I've learned that over the years. Me too. So I set the alarm earlier. I get up and I move and then you have, it's just a different mindset on how you feel facing those things. You've gotta face for the day, as opposed to maybe having that, hang over your head all day and you end up dreading that exercise.

You won't get it in. So that would be my main suggestion or if it's a type of appointment that the person is going to be at for a while. Maybe you go out and have a walk instead of just sitting there for the hour or whatever it's going to be , but it's making that plan when you're gonna fit that time in for you to get that exercise in and make a plan that, you know, it's realistic that you're gonna stick to.

Cathy:

I like what you said, because having a plan is so important, , when Dennis had his long, long days in, in Milwaukee, when he has stem cell transplant, I didn't work out in the morning, but there was a point in the day where I would drop him off, go back to my place and then I would work out, but I had to figure out and make that planning, and fit that in somewhere.

Lynn:  

Because it catches up with you.  Then you start feeling sluggish and then you ask  why don't I have any energy? I didn't do anything all day, you know? Pack some of those healthy, healthy snacks too. Okay. Put the little tiny cooler in your car with the ice pack.

Easy things like, baby carrots is a go to for me. Low sugar with dip or hummus to have in there. Maybe you make a wrap or a sandwich to put in there, a healthy protein bar, and maybe you have a smoothie that just needs to be mixed with water, or you make your smoothie at home and drink on the way to pick up your loved one or on the way to the appointment.  Smoothies are great for a healthy meal.

Cathy:  

My go to snacks and smoothies have really help me. I've been to so many hospital cafeterias. Boy and they have healthy options, but when you walk in there and you're starving or you're stressed, you're gonna look at the ice cream bars in the cooler, or the big, beautiful, sweet rolls and desserts and fried foods.

I swear, that's where it all started for me because it was so tempting. Oh, I'm just gonna have and I convinced myself, I needed the comfort food. It's so easy to get off the track. 

What do you say, kind of flipping gears a little bit. What do you say to somebody that has tried to, to be healthy and has tried the eating right and moving their body? And they're in a rut or they fail and they tried it and then now they just fell off the plan and they feel like crap because they did it?

What would you tell somebody as a coach, as a nutrition coach and a wellness coach? What advice would you give me if I failed? And I just haven't worked out Lynn in a whole week and I'm not eating well?  I just can't figure it out. What would you tell me? I think that, you know, don't beat yourself up for falling off the wagon?

Lynn:

There's no shame in that. We all do it as long as you get back at it. And the best thing to do is find yourself either a community that you can be part of. You know, with like-minded people that want to get healthy, want to get more movement in, or even a friend that can be an accountability partner in all the things that I've done over the years.

An accountability group where you say how you did with your nutrition, how you did with your water, how you did with your exercise? And if there's something you're struggling with, we bring it into our group. You may just need an ear to say, I'm really struggling with this. 

At the end of the day, you're gonna have that person that you're going to talk to. And really for me, that makes a huge difference. And I think it does for a lot of people. Good advice and  that extra support. It will help too, because sometimes for a caregiver, the season is quieter and they can commit and focus more.

Cathy: 

Do you have any other thoughts or advice for the caregiver woman? I love the morning routine. Is there anything else that inspires you?  maybe books that you've read, music that you listened to or different techniques?

Lynn:  

Is there anything that inspires you? As part of the virtual coaching, one thing that we're encouraged to do is to take even 10 minutes a day for what we call personal development, which really would be taking a book that is some sort of self-improvement self-help book. And I'm not a big reader, but even just taking that 10 minutes, even five days a week, whatever you can fit in that has made a significant difference in the way that I think.

Cathy:  

I think for caregivers, it's a good distraction as well as it's a good thing to focus in on something else. Sometimes you're so isolated as a caregiver. 

You can follow Lynn on Instagram @lynn_macpherson26

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