← You Are Not Broken
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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to youo Are Not Broken, the podcast that challenges everything we've been taught about midlife hormones and sexuality. I'm Dr. Kelly Casperson, board certified urologist, author, and a leading voice in women's sexual and hormone health. Enjoy the show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the you're Not Broken podcast. I have a fun thing happening today. So I was at Vonder Wright's probably seventh annual, but I say second annual because I've been there two times. Conference down in Orlando in 2025. And I was in the back of the auditor. This is like, there's like a thousand people there. And Dr. Wright was like, you have to meet my patient zero. Did she call you her patient zero?
- [00:41]
B
I don't know if she uses that because I've never seen her use my images. Like, I've never seen that in real time. I started calling myself her muse.
- [00:52]
A
Oh, her muse. I like that better than patient Zero. Patient zero is like a something bad. So I got introduced to you, and she was like. And she does stand up, and she's a fitness competitor. And I'm like, you have to be on my podcast. So welcome to the podcast. Susan Guidy.
- [01:06]
B
Thank you so much. You don't understand.
- [01:09]
A
Oh, we're gonna have. We're gonna have some fun today. So take us back, because this is, I think, at the heart of it, this is a transformation story. So take me to, like, Susan, before, what was like, what was the career, what was the couple of decades like? And then the transformation story.
- [01:24]
B
Goodness. I grew up in Tampa, Florida. I'm Cuban, Catholic. I'm 68 years old. So I grew up in a certain time in a certain culture that says you marry the first man you ever sleep with. You don't have sex outside the marriage. That's pertinent because I practice ultrasound. I started in nuclear medicine and then stumbled into ultrasound when it was in its infancy, literally when ultrasound was just beginning. I trained at Johns Hopkins when it
- [01:54]
A
was still black and white. Oh, wait, it's still black and white.
- [01:56]
B
No, no. When it was not real time. What? Yeah, that's how old I am. When we started, ultrasound was created by compound imaging.
- [02:10]
A
And so then they had to go put it together.
- [02:13]
B
We had to put it together. You had to draw it like you drew it, and then made this sort of acquisition come to life. And I got used to people telling me it's useless. Every radiologist I worked for, the radiologist
- [02:29]
A
said ultrasound was useless.
- [02:31]
B
Go back downstairs. We have ct. Take those images with you. And because of that, I landed At Johns Hopkins, which was Mecca at the beginning of ultrasound. And no one ever particularly thinks I'm Latina, but I am. And I spoke Spanish. And there was an opportunity to go to South America to be the pioneer of ultrasound at a time where no one had been to Chile. And I met my ex husband in Chile. And I was very young. I often say if I had to do that again, I don't know if I would have had the cojones or whatever to do it. I really didn't speak Spanish well enough to give presentations. I joked that in order to present to the physicians, I decided that any words I didn't know, I would put o or a at the end of.
- [03:28]
A
You'd say like the English word and just add an o or an a.
- [03:31]
B
Like Peaks, for instance.
- [03:33]
A
See, you were doing improv before you knew it.
- [03:36]
B
Oh, I always had been. I grew up in a harmonica band, a family traveling harmonica band like the Partridge Family. So I had been on stage for as long as I can remember, especially playing the harmonica. You have to have guts. And the first lecture I gave was a physics lecture and I got to the word peaks because we were describing these acoustic peaks. And I thought, well, pica, no, but picos, that works only in Chile. As a urologist, picos meant penis, you know, the slang version. So here I'm telling the audience, you know, the dicks go up, they go down. And I was a huge hit. Oh, I met my ex husband there.
- [04:21]
A
How old were you then?
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B
21.
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A
21. What an adventure.
- [04:27]
B
What an adventure. Then we went to France, we got married, we went to France, I had my first child. We came back to the States and back to Chile during Pinochet, during a dictatorship. And life was tough. And Chile in those days, and four years into that, the Chilean government would make physicians pay back their time abroad because they would finance like a fellowship. And then they have to come back and pay. And we decided to come back to Tampa, which is where I'm from. And about a year into us coming back to Tampa, my ex husband had an affair with a man at the peak of aids. And it was life changing, it was survival. And I stayed married for another 20 years because that's what good Cuban Catholic girls do. Until I said no mas in my middle 40s and decided I was going to reinvent my life, I had continued to do ultrasound. In fact, I say I teach or I have taught every big thing in ultrasound, from static ultrasound to real time. Twill time to end a cavitary which you're familiar with to then 3D was coming of age, and I was doing 3D research at USF. And I knew it was going to change everything as we knew it. So I took my divorce money, $80,000, decided I was going to start my own practice because I hated the way we were practicing ultrasound for obstetrics and gynecology. We were doing 20, 25 patients a day, and we weren't using cutting edge technology. It would take physicians about 15 to 20 years to say, oh, that's something we should be using. And I didn't know anything about business, but I was so passionate that women deserved a better exam. And I didn't take insurance. Everybody told me, you can't do that. And my whole life has been about you can't. And me saying, well, perhaps you should watch me. And just about that time, I was dealing with a lot of familial issues because none of my family accepted the fact that I was getting divorced. They were like, take one for the team.
- [06:50]
A
What are people gonna say?
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B
My mother, you're crazy. Cause she's Cuban, you're crazy. Why you don't let him live in the back of your house? Because he's living in the back of somebody else's house. You know, I would joke. I was always joking, right? She would, like, make the sign of the cross. And then I realized I needed something to find my voice because the world around me was crazy. I mean, no one supported me. Everyone abandoned me. All the physicians in the group that we were friends with, my whole life dissolved.
- [07:22]
A
And this is mid-40s now. Mid-40s, mid-40s, shit.
- [07:27]
B
Three children, single mom, started my business. And standup, oh, my gosh. Stand up was life changing. For the first time, I could get on stage and rant.
- [07:43]
A
Yes, it's therapy. It's a safe space and it's therapeutic. For anybody who didn't catch that, we're talking about standup comedy.
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B
Yeah, that was one of the tools that I used.
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A
How'd you find it? How'd you find standup?
- [07:56]
B
So, you know, I grew up before the computers and everything else, but as I started to investigate, they were using standup for corporate people learn to give a better presentation, Right. And I found this great guy in New York, the American Comedy Institute. And I literally took myself on sabbatical. I would work at NYU during the day and write comedy at night so that I could get a solid five minute set. And then I realized by the time I really got into comedy, I was almost 50. And goodness, being a 50 year old woman against young guys that are in the club. It's not conducive to a single mom and running a business and everything else. And that's how I found improv. Improv allowed me to still do comedic things, but that also changed my life.
- [08:52]
A
I don't think people understand. Improv and standup are quite different.
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B
Completely different.
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A
And improv is more of a team. You don't let your teammate down in improv, you're always got each other's back.
- [09:04]
B
That's exactly. That's one of the sayings. And there's no failure in improv. I think improv sometimes is like pelvic floor therapy for the soul. Instead of clenching, you know, you start.
- [09:18]
A
Yeah, let it go, Let it go.
- [09:20]
B
And you don't examine what you said, because there's no failure. And I'm on an improv team right now. And then, because I did music growing up, I stumbled across musical improv, where we make up songs on the spot and it's just glorious. And that led me into my 50s. I went into menopause around 47, and I did a bodybuilding competition for the first time at 47 on a dare, and I won.
- [09:52]
A
You went in on Adair and you won?
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B
Yeah, I know, it was insane. But I went into menopause. I didn't reverse out of it, which we understand a lot about bodybuilding right now, is that you can't just do this intense thing and then go back to your regular life. But nobody knew that. So I developed Hashimoto's thyroiditis. I broke my leg.
- [10:18]
A
You shocked your system.
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B
And then I fell into that acceptance of, well, this is menopause, right? You get fat, you get invisible. I remember I wrote my shtick about being invisible. I would joke that I could rob a bank and get away with it because nobody would see me.
- [10:40]
A
I tried. So I did some research.
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B
And, yeah, so that's now mid-50s. Fast forward to right before the pandemic. My son's in medical school in his third year of medical. I have three kids, two girls and a son.
- [10:57]
A
Tell me he's gonna be a urologist.
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B
He actually, interestingly enough, yes. Susan just got a job at usc and he's going into urology. How crazy is that?
- [11:09]
A
No, there's a comedy urology. There's a thing. There's a vibe.
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B
Oh, I do. I did urology.
- [11:17]
A
Yeah, exactly, because you have to be. You have to be okay with penises.
- [11:22]
B
Well, and men. You know what, though, Kelly? Men. I realized because I worked for one of the Top andrologists here in town. They asked me to come in and teach them ultrasound for their office. And then I just stayed and I do a whole routine about, you know, I do sonography. And then I stop and go, yeah, I scan. Sorry if I curse. I scan dicks, you know, And I talk about going into the urology department for the first time and not having a clue and scanning for erectile dysfunction. And I realized on what I would affectionately call Pee Pee Wednesdays, because that was the day I went in, I would dress a little bit sexier. And I realized that my comfort with myself and my humor really helped the men.
- [12:17]
A
Yeah, like, they're like, she's got us. We're fine. She's a professional.
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B
Oh, it was fabulous. I love urology.
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A
Urology is fantastic. Urology is fantastic.
- [12:27]
B
So, yeah, interesting enough, my son's gonna work in urology.
- [12:30]
A
That's fantastic. Okay, so tell me. So you did a bodybuilding competition, but then we got out of shape again. Society says everybody's done. Then the pandemic happened.
- [12:41]
B
So he's in medical school, and one, I guess, day in January 2020, he calls me and says, mom, I'm gonna do a medical mission trip in Haiti so that I can get a better chance of getting a residency. So that looks good. And he said he was in Watertown, New York. He said, I'm gonna fly home, spend a few days with you, and then go off to Haiti. And I just assumed he was going with a big organization. That was not the case. When he came home, it was him, a dentist, the assistant, and some other kid. They were going in an Indiana Jones plane to some remote part of Haiti. And he takes off about 10 days before the pandemic starts.
- [13:26]
A
Holy cow. Geez Louise.
- [13:30]
B
Trump closes the border. Haiti closes their border. My baby boy, you know, who I raised pretty much on my own, is stuck in Haiti. And there was a moment, and Vonda talks about this, I think, in her book. There was a moment where I was stuck in the corner just crying, thinking, do I go to Haiti and rescue him like a cowgirl? Like, what do I do?
- [13:55]
A
That would cross my mind. I would be. I'd be, like, sewing dollar bills on the inside of my pants, because I saw that on a movie somewhere. So that's prob. Probably what needs to happen.
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B
And Haiti was super dangerous, too.
- [14:10]
A
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- [15:08]
B
It was bad. And I remember praying to God, Buddha, whoever would listen that if I didn't have to go rescue him, I was going to give something back. I didn't know then at that time what it was, but I promised the universe that I was gonna give back. So great ending to the story. I get him back on the last plane out of Haiti. And now at 63, I start looking on Instagram to say, well, who are some 60 year old women that are doing great things, like inspiring things? And I thought, there's not a whole lot of us.
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A
Why isn't there? Can we pause for a hot second? Why isn't there?
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B
I don't know. I think because women didn't believe that this age could be a second or a third act, that this is the time to capitalize on. You know, this is the time you don't have kids for the first time or you're reinventing yourself, or you just stop believing the narrative about what this is supposed to look like. Right.
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A
So this is five years ago, would you say? And I want to get back to your story, but I'm like, that was not that long ago. Is that mindset changing? Do you see it changing?
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B
Yeah. In fact, far more than what I found. But I found Joan McDonald. Do you know Joan McDonald?
- [16:34]
A
Yes. Train with Joan. I talk as if we're friends. I'm like, oh, Joan. No, I don't know her, but I would like to.
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B
So here's Joan at 70, starts this journey. And when you look at Joan's beginning pictures, she looks just like me. She looked just like me. And Joan was essentially in kidney failure. She was a sick child.
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A
Joan was in trouble. And I'll only say that because she said that publicly on podcast of like, Joan was Like, her daughter basically came and, like, took her from her house because she's like, this is going down fast.
- [17:09]
B
Yeah. And they started that Wonder Woman program, which existed, but she opened it up to the public. And when I found Joan, I realized I was like two weeks out before the application for joining the Wonder Women was ending. So I just applied, and that was in March of 2020. And I didn't get in. And I was determined. Now I saw someone that built muscles, and I thought, wait, this isn't what. She had triceps. She was ripped. She had regained her life and her health. And I applied again and finally got in on December 7, 2020, and my life changed completely. I would have to take check in pictures for this program because you took weekly check in pictures in a bikini, which I didn't even own. My poor son in the beginning would have to take the pictures for me because we were home alone during the pandemic. I remember him just like, standing in the corner with my side pose. And I discovered macronutrition for the first time. I had always sort of been in the gym. I'm a tomboy, so I like working out. And I had body build at 47, so I was certainly familiar. But this was life changing. And I found a whole tribe of women that were in the Wonder Women that were all doing it with me. And predominantly women over 50 in menopause that we're losing without. This is before really ozempic.
- [18:54]
A
This is before the GLP1s. Yep.
- [18:57]
B
So a community of women. It was like links on a chain. And the odd thing is, is that I do a motivational speech called what if Wonder woman now were 68? Cause we never see superheroes age.
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A
I love that.
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B
What would she be like? Would she have gained menopausal weight? Would she be on HRT? Would she be on a GLP1? Would she have had a hip repl. Would she be a standup? How would she be saving the world? And I also realized that Wonder Woman has followed me my entire life. When I gave this presentation for the first time, I realized I worked for the creator of Wonder woman's son for 25 years. So it was just like all these life events that were meant to happen. So in nine months, I lost 45 pounds. And they would encourage you to do a milestone, like, photo shoot. I had never done a photo shoot in my life. I hire a photographer, I don't even look, and he's like this editorial photographer for Vogue. I have no idea what I'm doing.
- [20:15]
A
You accidentally Hired a photographer who does Vogue.
- [20:18]
B
Well, the program said you could hire this guy or this guy or this guy. And I was like, well, this guy seems cool.
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A
Way to go big.
- [20:26]
B
I know. Everything I did was. We did a photo shoot out in the desert. I almost died, but I was determined. I even said to him, I want you to shoot me. I had boxing wraps and I almost wanted like bruises or something that said, she's been knocked down, but she's still here. And he captured. Even though I like fainted like two or three times in the desert because it was like 108 degrees at 5:30 in the afternoon, but I did it. And when I did that damn photo shoot, all of a sudden I thought, well, if this is possible, what else have I been saying I've wanted to do for the longest time and haven't done? And the photo shoot led to the bodybuilding competition again. Because that woman that did the bodybuilding competition at 47 just, she haunted me. Like, I kept thinking, how did you get the mojo to do it then? Can that be possible again? And I did the same competition in 22 and won again. But Kelly, this time there was no age group for me.
- [21:46]
A
What do you mean there wasn't an age group for you?
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B
There's no age group for a 65 year old.
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A
This is only three years ago.
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B
No, like you just get up and you're competing. You have a 40 year old next to you. Have a 30 year old next to you. There was a moment in the bathroom and the bikinis you get on stage with fit in a baggie. Yeah, right.
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A
You don't want a brisk wind blowing.
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B
Actually, they glue them to your.
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A
Yeah, yeah, no, they're glued on. Yeah, exactly. I have no personal experience, but yes, I've seen many.
- [22:18]
B
And I'm standing in the bathroom like trying to put it on. And in the mirror, the only mirror in the bathroom, I'm standing next to two young girls. And there was this moment where I was like, I'm doing this. I don't look that different than them. I mean, everybody always said, what about the loose skin? Where's your loose skin? I'm like, at this age you have loose skin, there's just, there's nothing you can do about it unless you have a tummy tuck, which I don't intend to do. No judgment, but that's just, you know, I feel like my combat evidence. But it was fabulous. Spray tan, not so much. At 4 o' clock in the morning, you have to line up with like 30 other women. It's like going to the gynecologist with.
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A
But it looks good.
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B
Yeah. 20 strangers and you're all naked.
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A
You know, I'm like, did they make an age group then? Like, are they making age group? You're masters, but masters starts at, what, 40?
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B
Yeah. I was a master when I did it at 47.
- [23:23]
A
Geez Louise, we're in trouble. I mean, like, this is like, let's zoom out for a second. Life expectancy of a female in America is 80. We're calling people who are in shape masters at 40. I don't. What's the right word? Are we neglecting? That's half your life. That's half of 80. People are like, yep, old. Like, there's just something a little bit deranged about that.
- [23:48]
B
It is. But we see more and more. I think that it's changing. It's not a sport for everyone. I certainly am not implying. It was my journey. I wanted to do it. I'm going to do it again this year. I had a hip replacement last year. No. At the end of 2024. And that was tough. And I thought my message now is, can you come back and regain all of that strength and everything that for a year, especially what happens to your mind? Because having a hip replacement, it's actually. It was fairly easy for me, but the mindset, getting there and choosing to have it was really tough. In fact, for a long time, I felt like, oh, my God, I just got to the peak of what I was doing, and now I'm back at basecamp. But it's those moments.
- [24:47]
A
Do you think it would have been. Not that I don't want to say hip replacements are easy, but what if you had not done the fitness journey before you got your hip replaced? Were you all the stronger to recover because you knew how to put in the reps? Your body was already had a baseline of fitness. Like, I have to think your ability to, excuse my terminology, bounce back from a hip replacement is better than somebody who's been sitting on a couch for 30 years.
- [25:14]
B
Oh, I was determined also, I'm single. Who's gonna take care of me? I was walking. Within three hours, I had my son, which, I joke, for literally 22 hours and maybe three minutes that he stayed. In fact, the next day after he left, I took off my compression hose, and I thought, well, those are never coming back on, because he won't come back to put them like. And so I always had this mindset of it's almost. Is it Mel Robbins that says this? No one's coming to save you. No one was gonna come and save me.
- [25:50]
A
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- [27:08]
B
Absolutely. But again, I've always sort of really enjoyed being an outlier. Like saying, is that really true? Is it really true we can't bounce back? Is it really true we can't do this after a hip replacement? In fact, I was deadlifting yesterday. Probably my biggest PR so far. I'm almost in a squat for the first time and I had no range of motion before I had the hip.
- [27:35]
A
Before you had the hip, you couldn't squat and now you're working up to squatting.
- [27:40]
B
And so I'm excited that again, you know, the universe is giving me this opportunity to say, can an ordinary woman who doesn't have. Like during the pandemic, when I trained, I didn't have a trainer. We didn't even have gyms at that point. And many of us did the transformation. So in spite of these hardships, I think I just really, I mean, be an example of. You can't. No. Watch me.
- [28:14]
A
How much resistance did you have from friends, like the non believers? Or was everybody like, yeah, you got this?
- [28:21]
B
Oh, that's such a great question. I lost some dear friends. So I've been in medicine and I had some friends that were in X ray and nursing that there were five of us and three of them were morbidly obese. And I was just thinking about that the other day. The resistance was crazy. Nobody likes it when you become that
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A
person that says, you're showing what's possible.
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B
No to alcohol, no to this. Like, when no becomes a full sentence. And all I would hear is, well, when are you coming back to normal? When are you going back to normal?
- [29:03]
A
When are you coming back to normal? There's some funny in that somewhere.
- [29:08]
B
There's a lot of funny in all of it. You know, turning it into the funny. It was tough, though. And then I could see this disconnect. And as I approached getting on stage again, then all of a sudden it was like I wasn't being invited to things. And then all of a sudden, you're
- [29:28]
A
too different now, and they don't like it.
- [29:31]
B
And the alcohol thing was an interesting journey as well. Saying no to alcohol because I wasn't a big drinker, but I was worried during the pandemic that that could easily transition into that, and it did.
- [29:48]
A
For many people, drinking went way up. During the pandemic, when did you stop drinking? Was it because of getting on stage or just overall health and your education about it? Like, what was the. Obviously, it doesn't fit into macros very well.
- [30:03]
B
It doesn't fit in the macros. And that was an education because you realize alcohol isn't a nutrient. And then I went down that. I realized that what I wasn't paying attention to, I didn't wear a sleep ring then. It was affecting my sleep all the time. No matter what I had. If I had one glass of Prosecco or three glasses of wine, I was gonna wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety, with an elevated heart rate. And as I started to do labs during the beginning of the weight loss, I. I noticed my. Even my glucose was starting to be borderline elevated fasting. And I thought, wait a minute, we can't have this.
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A
We can't have this.
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B
Some of the first courses I taught with Vonda, I remember, she was like, we had to tread lightly in the audience that we were speaking to, because some of the high and professional women did not, like. If you said to them, you know, alcohol doesn't serve us.
- [31:07]
A
Yeah. My opinion, because I've been alcohol free for four years now, and it's come a long way even in four years, we're like, well, if you choose, you could choose to not have alcohol. And, like, the amount of data that's come out now and the amount of people who are choosing those, like, it's okay to be like, listen, it doesn't add. It's not adding anything to your life. Like that's just a fact.
- [31:32]
B
I mean, wouldn't you say alcohol's estrogenic in a way? Yes. I mean, no.
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A
It's crappy, it's inflammatory.
- [31:40]
B
And then if you wear a sleep ring, you can't hide from it. There's no. You will have an altered sleep as a result of it. So that became, I think, life changing. And again, being in a tribe of women where that was the norm.
- [31:56]
A
Yes. Finding where you're normal. We're social beings and we don't wanna get kicked out of the tribe. It's very scary. And for you to get kicked out of your tribe and be alone.
- [32:08]
B
Oof, that was tough.
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A
Not good. That's not good for long term success.
- [32:12]
B
But I let it go, you know, and it was okay. Like I've realized. Cause you think at this age you can't lose friends at this age, like, you can't make friends and you can't lose friends. Right. None of that is true. The same crap that happens when you're young. There can be mean girls at this stage. It doesn't make any difference what's your age. That does not prevent that from happening. But here's the truth. You can make friends. It's a verb, though. You have to try and look for people who are inspiring you and then surround yourself with those people, like, who do you want to be and who's doing it. I became Joan's friend. I was determined she would be my friend. Love it.
- [32:58]
A
So good.
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B
So, yeah, I think that so many of the things that started with the weight loss just turned into. I wish it didn't have to be about weight loss. That weight loss puts you on the map because it had nothing really to do with the weight loss weight loss. It had to do with the mindset change. That I was enough.
- [33:21]
A
Yes.
- [33:22]
B
I needed to be seen. I often say there's a seat at the table for every woman and if you don't find one, bring a folding chair and just scoot in. Right. And I was bringing a folding chair everywhere I was going.
- [33:37]
A
I love it was Joan and Joan's group. Like your coach. Did you get coaching? And I don't mean coach for, for bodybuilding. I mean coach for the mindset. Like who was checking you on your thoughts and if your thoughts were serving you or not. Where were you getting that work?
- [33:53]
B
So the wonder women. I mean, if you got Michelle McDonald who was Joan's mother. She only took 20 people, so I did not get her. But Joan started hiring coaches and she had a woman who was in charge of the older women in the program. And this woman was the Ying to Mai Yang. She was this yogi, calm, just profound. And I would say we'd have weekly check ins where we'd have a zoom call. We wouldn't talk about my macros or the weightlifting. We would just talk about life and its journey. And it was the biggest. And mindset issues. We read the big leap and just all sorts of books that started saying, you know, there's more to life and our voices need to be heard. And she was in charge of me and it was the best thing that could have ever happened. It was spectacular. You know, she would help me plan for family events. And why putting myself first. I would often develop this thing that said when I started loving myself, it just became easier to love everybody else. Because once I was happy, then the world was just a little bit brighter. I said at a motivational speech, if Nike and l', Oreal, you know, said, just do it because you're worth it. Oh, Susan, just do it because you're worth it. And I started meeting all these over 50 women that were just doing amazing things. And I always say that's kind of my mission right now is using improv to get these women to tell their stories. Because every woman I meet has been through something that has changed the course of their life, but they've survived and they don't realize that that's a superpower and we all have them.
- [36:00]
A
I love it. Why'd you go on Instagram? Like, where were you? Like, I want to be public now with this in a bikini.
- [36:10]
B
So a couple things. I had had a coach before I started the Wonder Women program, like a year and a half before that. Because I would every like five or six years decide, I'm going to do bodybuilding. And then I'd fail or I'm going to do bodybuilding. So this one guy said, well, you know, what if you put your journey on Instagram? What if there was somebody that saw it and got inspired of it? And I had one picture that had these old terrible shorts that I rolled up and you could see my pantis. Cause I literally had a panis, right? That's like a gut, right? I took this bra and rolled it up. I looked like I was a serial killer. And when the Wonder Women started, my coach was like, what if Joan had never posted her journey?
- [36:59]
A
Oh, okay.
- [37:02]
B
What if Joan. And that's how they sort of get you. So Mel Robbins again, that's a hell of a hook. You know, she has that book that's 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Just do 5, 4, 3, 2,. So I found my why. And my why was I have seven grandchildren. I wanted them to see a grandmother who they looked up to, who was still relevant, who could rap with them, who knew what was going on with them, who was present. Because that's what improv teaches you, right? And I wanted to be not a different type of grandmother, but a grandmother they'd be super proud of. That was part of my why. The other why was my son. The year after I started the transformation, he was graduating from medical school. And I knew the minute he crossed that stage, my work was sort of done right. And I thought I wanted him to be as proud of me as I was of him. And that just also became the inspiration. So the day I decided to post my heavy picture, my fat picture, my serial killer picture, where I'm like 185 pounds, you know, I just went, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, boom. And I posted it. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. And you know what? What was wonderful, and I will say this about social media. I have rarely had anything negative happen. That day could still almost make me cry. I had so many people that reached out, went in. The fact, you go, girl. You go girl. It was remarkable. And I had all of these women. I have made so many friends from women that started to follow me. I had 15 followers when I started.
- [39:33]
A
Of course we all. So did I.
- [39:38]
B
I do have a few more now.
- [39:39]
A
So did Dr. Evonda Wright. So did all of us.
- [39:41]
B
Yeah.
- [39:41]
A
No, it's incredible, my learning of this, and tell me if this rings true for you, is the more you become the best version of you, the more other people are like, I like it. I want to be friends with that. She's doing stuff right. Like the more you, you become, the better it gets.
- [40:02]
B
I stopped posting a little bit after this election. I just was a little overwhelmed with just the climate. And I went to that lecture. I Mean, that conference that we met and there were a number of women that I was sitting in the audience who were like, oh my God, Susan, you've stopped posting. And I thought, I need to post more. So that's part of my mission for this year, is to start posting. I get a lot of response when I do it in a bikini. So I decided do anything in a bikini and, you know, likes and every. It doesn't make any difference how you look. Just do it in a bikini. But I have decided because I think there's a lot of women that still need to hear from me and oh, man.
- [40:48]
A
I mean, I'm not here to tell you what to do. You don't need my help. But especially your hip replacement story, that would resonate if you talked more about that because there's a lot of women like headed into that and like, what's your recovery's been. And if you were like six months out, I could squat.
- [41:02]
B
Oh, yeah. I mean, you'd be amazed. You wouldn't know right now in the gym if you saw me. In fact, I would say I'm better than I was even for that competition. I'm in better shape now than I was. So now we lose the weight.
- [41:18]
A
Yeah. It's crazy. And it's crazy how fast muscle goes away when you don't use it.
- [41:25]
B
Right.
- [41:25]
A
But it comes back, especially if you already had it. It's that muscle memory. Your body knows how to have muscle. I'm probably not saying that scientifically.
- [41:32]
B
Well, that's why 30 and 40 year olds. I think Banda talks about this too. That's the time to lay the muscle down. And I think that was an advantage. A little bit that I had going into the transformation at 60 was that I had laid some significant muscle down.
- [41:51]
A
What do you say to the people who are like, it's so hard to build muscle after whatever, 30, it's so hard to do it. Is that just a mindset problem? But it does take time. We want quick fixes and it's not quick. What would you say about that belief set?
- [42:08]
B
There's so many things right. It's still the mindset. I think the mindset for women is still the message. And it's now with the GLP1s and everything and the sort of skinny fades is don't eat. We were meant to eat. That was one of the lessons that I had to learn when I did macronutrition because we chronically undereat. I've done every diet in the world. Every DIET that was 500800 calories, 1000 calories. What was that? 1200 calories. We weren't meant to eat that minimal of calories. That's not good for us. Women need to learn to eat and be okay with eating. Now, not eating crap, right? But high protein, that was another thing. So we had to do three days of giving them a sample of what we did. Most women aren't even getting 50, 60 grams of protein. That's insane. That's insane. So learning to eat. I also think women still want a quick fix. We still want to lose the ten pounds by that wedding we're going to.
- [43:25]
A
And I think we're. I think it's. You know, the magazines are like, abs in six weeks, triceps in four. You know, like, we're fed that. If you don't get this really fast, you're failing. When, really, correct me if I'm wrong. Slow and steady, slow and steady, slow and steady. And then, boom, six months in, you're like, there it is, right?
- [43:47]
B
And then imagine after a couple of years in, and there's something to be said about a woman going in the gym and teaching yourself to navigate that gym. Pretend like you belong. And if you don't, in the beginning, when I finally got back into the gym, I would pick whoever. Help me with this. Help me with this. How do I do this? Move over. I need to get a set in.
- [44:12]
A
Yeah. Take up space. Take up space. Hey, Nike and l'. Oreal. Take up space, right?
- [44:19]
B
Because you're worth it.
- [44:20]
A
Because you're worth it.
- [44:20]
B
You're navigating the gym and muscle cognitively. It gives you bdnf. It's the Spanx. Like, you don't have to wear Spanx if you have muscle, right? It's amazing.
- [44:36]
A
Sarah Blakely is a billionaire because we don't lift weights, right?
- [44:41]
B
And I think it isn't a quick fix. It's your life. Who is that woman who laces on her shoes and goes to the gym and is empowered by increasing the weights? But what would we always say? Oh, I don't wanna get bulky. You couldn't get bulky.
- [45:00]
A
You can't. You can't do it. It can't be done. I mean, I love the man response to that because it really is golden. Like, the man response to that is like, we wish. You know, they're like. Like, we've got. We've got testosterone to 750, and we. It's. It's hard for them to get bulky. Whatever the hell bulky means.
- [45:19]
B
I don't know your Arms look better in an outfit and you learn to feed yourself.
- [45:25]
A
And I think the other thing, yeah, like we're all looking at aesthetics on this, but being strong feels good. And I think that's hard to translate, right. But like people be like, why do you do it? Well, just to look good. Looking good is not the. Like it just feels good.
- [45:44]
B
It does feel good. And there's something about vibrancy and thriving at this age that allows you to do all the things you ever dreamed of. But then the other side of that is that if you fall at this age and you haven't done the work, we all know the statistics on what the 65 year old that breaks her hip maybe has a 50% chance of dying.
- [46:12]
A
And there's all the other fractures, wrist vertebrae, all the other fractures, ankle, but hip fracture, 30% mortality within a year and 50% will never regain baseline physical activity.
- [46:26]
B
65, that's young. And if you have grandkids. I always wanted to design a grandkid workout program for women who don't have grandkids. So you would take a 30 pound something and sit it on your hip. Now go climb those stairs or now do a sprint because the two year old has run out in the street and you've got the baby. Can you sprint? Can you get down on the floor with them? You know, just simple things that you don't realize until you have grandkids that do you want to be a part of their life or are you sitting on the couch just delegating things to do? So I think my vision of what I wanted was, I think again, it's like Vonda says, I want to be like Queen Elizabeth that just was riding a horse three days before she died. That's the way I wanna go out. I don't know, there's just so many possibilities that I often say, don't tell people about menopause. This is great on this side. And Kelly, you know, I'm the generation who didn't take hrt. My mentor was one of the top reproductive endocrinologists in the world, Anna Parsons. She's since retired. You know, I had a mother that when you asked her, the Cuban mother, ah, it just stopped. My parents just, you know, don't talk to me about those things. And so you white knuckled whatever it was you went through. Right. But our generation was told estrogen causes cancer. So it really wasn't offered to us, it wasn't given to us. So then I also wanted to say, well, could I do this in spite of not having anything. And all of it's possible. The weight loss is possible without the GLP1s. If you choose that the muscle building is possible. Regaining your strength in the gym is possible. Doing a photo shoot, doing standup, I'm in a band, I'm doing a one woman show this year. All of those things just lead to this life that we need to see. More women like that.
- [48:32]
A
Absolutely, yeah. I think some people use hormones as the get it done fast thing again. They want it to be the miracle. Like, will I get muscles if I take testosterone? It's like, no, not if you don't eat and lift weights. Which you should be doing regardless of if you're taking testosterone or not. Right. Like people want it again. They want the quick fix, they want it to be the miracle. And there's plenty of people taking hormones who are overweight, under muscled, sleep like crap, drink alcohol. And I see it a lot that women who aren't having hormones or can't take hormones, they feel so bad because they feel like they're missing out. And I'm like, everything else is within your power. Everything else is within your power. And everything else is relatively cheap and free. Stop drinking alcohol, lift weights, go on walks, eat protein, sleep regularly. You should be doing all of that instead of sitting around saying, poor me, I can't be on hormones. It's like, you better be doing all the other things then. So yeah, I think people look at hormones like it's the cheat code. It's not the cheat code at all. We're here just to educate about it. Cause we got 20 years of miseducation we gotta undo.
- [49:44]
B
And it's hard, right? Cause everybody's like, well, it's hard. And I remember saying this on a podcast long time ago. Well, life is hard, so choose your hard. Cause it's a bitch for all of us. Just choose how hard are you going to make it for yourself? Because it can be still hard, but exciting. You can be breaking all the barriers that can be happening at this life. I mean, at this time in life. And this is sometimes the best time in life. Cause you don't have. You know, when we're in our 40s, I often say some of this. Cause you know, I work in gynecology, so some of the symptoms that come from menopause, I think is life in general. Like women for the first time have maybe teenagers or a relationship that's gone south for the first time where they're taking care of elderly parents. And that's massive for a Woman whose system is starting, you know, the ovaries are starting to go. We're going to Hawaii this month. You know, we're gonna, we're checking out.
- [50:50]
A
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- [51:16]
A
we're not going to clock in today.
- [51:20]
B
You know too, I have to stop you and ask you, you said at that conference, and I knew I meant to ask you this, you said something that said people want to know what their bodies look like. Can't remember exactly the quote or see inside their bodies. You said something, something like people are
- [51:37]
A
just insanely fascinated or interested about their bodies.
- [51:41]
B
So for the first time, it's taken me a long time, I'm really starting to see women because we don't do an ultrasound right before you go into menopause to see architecturally what you're taking into menopause with you. Do you have a benign cyst? Do you have a hydrosalpinx? Do you have fibroids? Do you have small polyps that no one's seen before? And ultrasound, my mentor used to call it image based gynecology. And we don't, you know, women get their hair done, they get their nails done, but they never have this great ultrasound that says, let us tell you what you don't have.
- [52:26]
A
Well, I think even, you know Vonda's image, her famous image that the whole Internet stolen from her, the muscle picture so many times. Yeah. Of like, just like, can you just take a picture of my left upper thigh and tell me like. And I think that's coming, you know, as far as like body fat percentage and stuff like that. Are we gonna be able to take a picture whether that's mri, ultrasound, something to be like this, the muscle, this is the fat. Let's watch it change over the next six months and actually watch it change. I have an in body bioimpedance in my clinic. But the scale, if you don't have a scale that breaks down fat versus muscle, going back to the eating thing and trying to be small, the number on the scale is meaningless if you don't know what your body's made of.
- [53:12]
B
Yeah. I think there's some messages right now, though, that are starting to say, let's be happy with Strong. You know, the creator of Wonder Woman. When he wrote Wonder woman in 1932, Dr. William Moulton Marston chose a woman to do his comic caricature of. Right. Because he believed women were superior. And he predicted that in a hundred years, women would be leading and taking over. And we're almost there.
- [53:44]
A
We're almost at the hundred years.
- [53:46]
B
Yeah. And I believe that we're at this cusp of women just taking their power back. They got tired of their lights. I often say, if you look back to when you were 6 or 7, what did you want to be when you put on a cape and you wanted to conquer the world? And then people slowly started blowing out your candle. Right. Dimming your light. Women are getting ready to put the lights back on. Floodlights, all of it. And with messages and podcasts and you. I just think. And people like me, that said, I'm just here taking the advice and doing the work, nothing else. I just did the work, and it paid off. I never imagined I'd be on a podcast with someone like you. You know, I didn't have an MD behind my name or. Or anything. But all of our messages are so relevant to just encourage one woman to be the best version of herself.
- [54:50]
A
Yes. Yes. I have a lot of women in clinic right now who are going through it, Right. They're realizing I need to build muscle, I need to lose some weight. I need to change some relationships that are pretty. They're pretty bad at this point. I need to work on my crap. I need to work on my childhood trauma. I need to work on the blah, blah. And they're in it like they're in the tunnel, right? And I'm like, this is the work. This is. It's hard. It is work. And not everybody will choose to do this work. But I have yet to meet a woman who's come through on the other side and say, I wish I didn't do that work.
- [55:23]
B
No, that doesn't work.
- [55:25]
A
Nobody says that. And so, like, that's my thing of, like, when you're in it. Yeah, it's hard. And you don't have to do it, because a lot of people choose not to do it. But when you get through it and you become the person who's done the work, everybody's glad they did the work.
- [55:39]
B
Yeah, I'm glad Joan did the work, because had she not, she inspired a multitude of. This one woman, she's gonna be 80 in March. 80.
- [55:52]
A
It's so cool. Well, thank you so much for coming in on my podcast and telling me your whole story, people. I like I'm on Instagram, so I like following people on Instagram. You have an awesome Instagram. It's Kikimouse Gets fit.
- [56:04]
B
Yep. Kiki Mouse is my grandma name. So everybody asked me. My name is Susan, but everybody asked me why and I said because my Y was for my grandkids and my grandma name is Kiki. But then they watched so much Disney that it became Kiki Mouse. And that when you said, when did you start your Instagram? I had no idea what I was doing, you know.
- [56:27]
A
Well, thank you so much for coming on.
- [56:28]
B
Thank you, Kelly. I so appreciate it. I'm waiting for your Netflix special.
- [56:32]
A
Oh, well, I'll work on that when I get some other things done. For sure.
- [56:36]
B
Yeah. Because we didn't even talk about sex.
- [56:38]
A
I know we didn't talk about sex. Okay, we'll talk next time. All right. Thank you.
- [56:42]
B
Thank you, Kelly. Bye.
- [56:43]
A
Love you. Bye. Bye.
- [56:44]
B
Bye.
- [56:45]
A
If you found this episode funny, helpful, insightful, please take a moment to follow rate and share the you are not broken podcast with someone who might need this conversation, too. That support is how this information reaches more people. And thank you. For courses, books and my monthly membership and the Caspersen clinic information, visit KellyCaspersonMD.com this podcast and all content from Dr. Kelly Casperson is intended for educational and informational purposes only, and this is not a substitute for individual medical coaching or psychological advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the guidance of your qualified health care professional with any questions you may have regarding your health. Never disregard or delay medical advice because of something you've heard on this or other podcasts. Thanks for being here. And remember, you are not broken.