Les McKeown: Hi everybody, and welcome to Scale! with Predictable Success. I'm Les McKeown, CEO and Founder of Predictable Success. And today on the show, I'm delighted to be with a friend, a client, somebody who I know you're gonna love talking with, Megan Hansen. Megan, welcome to the show.

Megan Hansen: Thanks for having me, Les.

Les McKeown: Ostensibly Megan, you're here to talk about your wonderful new book, Metabolism Makeover, which as a Brit, I keep starting saying metabolism, but it's not. It's Metabolism Makeover and we're gonna spend a fair amount of time, talking about it.

But I've had the benefit of working with you up close for a couple of years as you've been growing your remarkable nutrition coaching business. You've got 40 dieticians now, over 7,000 people in your community and it's been a remarkable journey, and it's been a pleasure and a privilege to be alongside you for part of that.

But I got to know your personal backstory a fair amount, and it's a remarkable one. So why not start there. Share with the listeners a little bit about your own sort of journey. How did you get to be interested in this topic anyway?

Megan Hansen: Well, it actually started in high school. I was an athlete and I wanted to get better at my sports. I was a swimmer and a soccer player, and I started picking up magazines at the grocery store, like Fitness Magazine, Shape Magazine, because I wanted to get ideas on how to work out, like better conditioning, weightlifting on the off season.

And as I'm reading these magazines, I was like, wow, these talk a lot about nutrition. I had no idea that what we put in our bodies impacted our performance or just how we felt every day. There was no connection there. I mean, I was drinking Carnation instant breakfast before practice every day!

And as I started making some swaps, I instantly felt it, I felt better at practice. I could swim faster, I could work out harder, my time's improved.

And you could say that led to a little bit of an obsession, which is just my personality.

Les McKeown: I noticed!

Both: Laughter

Megan Hansen: Exactly! And at the time, I think, and we will get into this in a minute here, but it felt like a healthy obsession, and it eventually turned a little unhealthy. But that's, you know, just a part of my journey and really what's gotten me to where I am today.

But when I found out that I could study nutrition in college, I was like, yeah, sign me up. This is so much better than business school. In college when you're studying to be a dietician, it's really from the approach, and this is at least like 15, 20 years ago, this is how they did it, but it's from the approach of working in a hospital.

So you're learning how to deal with patients who are really sick, so you're learning that, but at the same time, every patient that comes in the door, you are evaluating their weight.

And so one of the first things we learned was, first we have to get their BMI (their body mass index). If they're overweight, what is their ideal body weight and how do we help them lose that weight. In addition to whatever else they're there for.

Les McKeown: Right.

Megan Hansen: And it's a simple math equation. It's just you're putting them in a calorie deficit. You might put them on a diet or you might prescribe them exercise. You're probably gonna do both. And we learned that, and we learned how to do it on our own.

We actually did a class project where we had to put ourselves on a diet. And we had a journal where we're writing everything down because of course there were no apps then.

So we're writing down what we're eating every day. And that led me into this extreme cycle of under and overeating.

And what I know now, looking back on it, is what was happening was I was putting myself on these 1200 calorie diets. I was exercising 60 plus minutes a day, and my biology was overriding my willpower.

So I might go five days doing this, and then eventually I would be starving and I would eat everything in my kitchen, or I would go out to eat and I wouldn't be able to stop eating.

And I thought that it was just my willpower. I thought it was a "me" problem, but what I now know is that it's actually your biology just eventually overrides because it's trying to keep you alive. Right?

Les McKeown: Right.

Megan Hansen: And so I got to a point, this is where the story comes full circle. And once again, years later, and at this point I've gained like 20-25 pounds. I feel awful. I have a horrible relationship with food.

And I start reading Fitness magazine again and I start reading that weightlifting is a more effective strategy for weight loss than cardio. And I'm like, that just doesn't even make sense. Like, I'm thinking about this. Cardio burns more calories. This is saying that muscle burns more calories though. And if I have more muscle, I'm gonna burn more calories at rest.

So I eventually start doing it, and once again, I go all in. You know, I get obsessed with it. I'm like, I'm just gonna lift weights. I'm not gonna do any more cardio.

And suddenly everything changes. I start losing weight, I start feeling better. The inflammation is gone. I have more energy. And I was like, whoa, what else have I been taught that is wrong.

And it just completely opened my mind up. And I started reading more about our bodies and our metabolism and how our bodies actually work from more of a biology perspective versus a math equation. And it was fascinating.

And I started incorporating different things into my life to just really focus more on taking care of my metabolic health versus I'm just gonna eat less.

Les McKeown: Right.

Megan Hansen: And that's really, you know, how I ended up here today. And as you said at the beginning, the title of my book is 'Metabolism Makeover'. So I'm still pretty obsessed with metabolism.

Les McKeown: Yeah. In a healthy way now!

Megan Hansen: Yes, in a very healthy way.

Les McKeown: The rest of us are benefiting from that. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment or two. And we'll come back to the mechanics of how and why that all works in a moment or two when we talk about the book in detail.

And just to foreshadow a little bit, you know, this is essentially a business growth, organizational growth podcast. But all of my regular listeners be very well aware that one of my precepts is that if you're not, you know, at least reasonably healthy as an individual, you can't perform well as a leader.

And we've had my own personal nutritionist and coach on the program sharing exactly the same things for exactly the same reasons.

And, she had a similar type of journey to you and did the same thing as you, which is where I wanna go to next, which is, that's all one thing, not separately, but also you then monetize this, you launched a business, right?

And, and I'd like to explore that a little bit.

Did you fall into that? Did you always want to have your own business? What got hold of you to start a business? That's a challenging thing to do.

Megan Hansen: Yeah. I actually did, and I remember it when I was an intern. When we went around the room at the end of the year and said that what we wanted to go and do, I said I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I had no idea what that looked like. Not a clue at the time.

And it actually took me several years because I had such a poor experience in college, and also when I was an intern, just with food and my weight and my body. And I felt a little bit like a fraud, I guess you could say at that point.

But once I got a grasp on this and I started understanding more about my body and my metabolism, I started a blog, really. I just wanted to share what I knew. And it was kind of a fun thing.

And I eventually got to a point where I was working for a health startup that ended up not getting enough funding and shutting down, but I was there for about a year and a half to two years.

And it made me realize in working with them, that if I went for it, if I started this business and I failed, it wouldn't be the end of the world because it wasn't the end of the world there.

I had a wonderful experience and I could see the things that we did right. I could see the things we did wrong, the things that we focused on that we shouldn't have focused on and spent way too much money. And so I got a lot of knowledge and experience there.

And so I was like, I'm just gonna go for it. And I started taking one-on-one clients at first, and I kind of took them through this same process that I took myself through with teaching them about their bodies and metabolism.

The approach was different because I wasn't just telling them what to do and saying like, here's your meal plan, here's your workout. I was actually teaching them about their bodies. I was teaching them the biology.

And something about that made something click, I think, in their brains where they were like, okay, now that I understand this information, I can actually go out in the world and do it and stop self-sabotaging.

And so I did that for probably six to eight months is all, and then I thought, this is working. I'm gonna turn this into a group program.

And I launched my first group program, which also is called 'Metabolism Makeover' in I think 2017. It will be six years at this point coming up. And it's just blown up from there. We've had over 7,500 clients come through there.

And then from there, we have the 30 day program. I eventually turned that into a monthly program. It rolls into a monthly program. I now do one-on-one coaching, but it was all very slow.

And I think that is one of my keys to success was that I was never someone who just, who said, I wanna do it all at once. Like, here's my group program and here's my membership.

And I think some, especially in the digital space, that tends to be something that a lot of people wanna do. They see others, they see people like me with all these offerings.

But I did one thing. I did 'Metabolism Makeover' for two or three years before I ever added the membership, and then I did that for another couple of years before I ever brought one-on-one coaching back in. And yeah, that's really it. That's the story.

Les McKeown: You said that whenever you were interning and you blurted out, I wanna be an entrepreneur, that you didn't really know what was involved there. Now that you can look back on it, and you're a very successful entrepreneur now, what have been the biggest challenges?

What really sort of hit you that you thought, "oh, I didn't realize it was gonna be like that"? And what have you really enjoyed most? What do you really enjoy most about being an entrepreneur?

Megan Hansen: What I enjoy most is most definitely the freedom. I am a single mom and I have sole custody of my daughter.

And so, you know, being able to take her to school every day, pick her up, if I have to go pick her up in the middle of the day because she doesn't feel well, or because, you know, whatever, whatever comes up with parents, it's having that flexibility without having to answer to someone else.

Les McKeown: Right.

Megan Hansen: And also to have that financial freedom where I am able to have help. I have someone who is very close to her that comes and puts her to bed two or three nights a week. That allows me to have a little bit of personal time or extra work time if I need to.

And it's just all of that flexibility. I don't feel tied to a schedule and to what someone else needs me to do. It's all on me. And I've always really liked that because I feel like even though it is all on me, which that can also be a downside, because there's a whole lot of pressure there. I have control over it.

Les McKeown: Right. Yeah. And it's interesting. And I'm the last person to have any right to speak, for and on behalf of any single moms. But I've worked with a lot. My last girlfriend was a single mom, and, I went through many years with her, of watching her having to juggle with all of that.

And, you know, one of the things that you and I talked about a fair degree, when we were working together was it, it's tough sometimes to battle with unreasonable guilt about investing, if you can, in a support infrastructure that allows you to get time to focus on your work.

Because as a mom, you're thinking, should I be doing this. And, you know, if you're running a business, the answer is, you sort of have to, to really put the structure together in order to have intimate time and relax time, because otherwise everything becomes a frenzy, right?

And even your time with your child becomes all messed up in the work, and you're not really present because, you know, you didn't get this done or that done. And I saw you, juggle that remarkably, I mean, we, all of our moments, but you know, you just did what needed to be done and built the time to be a fantastic mom. So that, that's remarkable.

Megan Hansen: Yeah. And you know, I have other mom friends that are entrepreneurs who really struggle with this, and they always feel like they're, you know, frantic and like they're on their phones with their kids and they have all this guilt.

And I'll be honest, at this point, I don't have a lot of that anymore because I have invested in that infrastructure. And so when I'm with her on the evenings that I put her to bed, and on the weekends, I'm a hundred percent present.

And so I don't, even though I'm maybe spending a little bit less time with my kid than other moms are, I'm there like 100%. And I think that's where I just am able to drop that guilt that I would have.

Les McKeown: Right, right. And one other thing I wanted to ask you about in terms of building your business, is a lot of folks, who have got lifestyle or, and/or fitness and many professional services businesses, they theoretically work for themselves.

But the reality is they're working for Instagram and TikTok, right? They're having to show up, meet the algorithm, feed the machine constantly, and that becomes a separate treadmill in its own right. You've worked with that, you know, you're in that world, but you seem to have built a lot of organic growth. Was that a deliberate strategy? And is the book a part of that?

Megan Hansen: Yes and no. The book is part of that, yes. But I wanna say I don't pay attention to any of that crap. Like, I don't pay attention to the algorithm. I don't pay attention to what I'm supposed to be doing on Instagram. I will, every once in a while I'll slip into that 'cause I'm human.

But when I do that, I notice that my engagement goes down. I notice that my energy gets drained, that I'm not selling as much.

I very much work hard to stay very connected to myself and to my audience.

And if I'm doing that and I'm sharing the things that I know that they need to hear, and like, and that's it. I'm on there selling every day, but I'm also on there offering value, and I'm not getting sucked into the soup of Instagram or to social media. I just continue to grow.

I've recently started running ads, but I don't even count that. I mean, really, truly, the majority of my growth and my income has come purely organically. And it's just really, truly come from being myself and being super connected to who I am and what my purpose is here.

Les McKeown: Two final things just on the business side of stuff. I presume a large part of that is, a question of getting a 'J Curve' going where you build your community to a point where word of mouth starts to really become a vital contributing factor to your ongoing growth. Would that be right?

Megan Hansen: Yeah, absolutely. And I think too, so it's the word of mouth, because what you're providing works, you're offering so much value in whatever it is that you're selling.

So you've got the word of mouth, and then you've also got the confidence to get on. Again, I'm talking about, 'cause I'm mostly on Instagram, so that's where I'm coming from to get on and speak and to get on and share about what it is that you're selling with so much confidence and conviction.

Because the only thing, when I get on there and I talk about it, there's no doubt, there's no like, "ooh, like I don't wanna sound like I'm selling, what should I say and how do I structure this and what's my call to action?"

I know that what I'm offering is changing people's lives. And I think people feel that, you know, people feel that from you. And so when you have confidence in what it is that you're selling, you're able to show that. And of course, if what you're doing is getting people results, they're gonna talk about it.

Les McKeown: Right. And you may have, in that, answered, the final question I had on the business side of stuff. You talked about being true to yourself. I'm paraphrasing a little bit what you said, and you've shared a little bit of what that is. You're going on and doing, and saying what's in your heart and not, you know, scripting, lighting, duck lips, posing, all that sort of stuff. Just for the many listeners we have who are in a similar sort of a world, what are the warning signals for you? When do you know that you're edging away from that?

Megan Hansen: That's a really good question. When I don't want to share, when I don't wanna get on, when I sit and I think like, "what in the world am I gonna say today?" When I start scrolling a lot to get inspiration. Now inspiration's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But when I just can't figure out what I wanna say, and I need to look outwards, I need to, you know, go external to find what I want. And, you know, this has honestly happened to me quite recently, where I'm just not having fun.

Les McKeown: Right.

Megan Hansen: Just a couple of weeks ago I was saying like, "I don't really wanna get up and go to work anymore". And it's weird, that's never happened to me in my life. And I finally had this epiphany that I was like, "well, this is 'cause I'm not having any fun, well, of course not. Why would I wanna get up and go to work?"

And so I started pulling back. I'm not scrolling anymore, okay? What can I do that is gonna infuse joy into my day? What is gonna make this more fun? How can we jazz up this launch and do something different? Let's experiment. And just like getting back into that like fun flow. And I've noticed I'm turning it back around again and things are starting to ramp up.

Les McKeown: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that point. I mean, inspiration is a great thing, but looking for something to mimic, you know, you're in a cul-de-sac at that point, right creatively? That's very, very good. I really appreciate that. Thanks Megan.

So let's talk about the book 'Metabolism Makeover'. Same name as the company. And by the way, you're at MetabolismMakeover.co, right?

Megan Hansen: Yes, correct.

Les McKeown: Why the book? Why'd you write it? Because I know writing a book is an awful pain, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but you've done it successfully.

It's a wonderful book, by the way. I want, I wanna put a quick plug in here. I implemented one thing. I'm not gonna say what it is. I implemented just one thing here in my breakfast routine. I'm sounding like I'm in a Ronco sales ad, selling this for you. But I am.

I implemented just one tip, and I'm not gonna say what it is. It completely has eradicated just one thing, a simple thing, which I love doing. Hadn't changed anything in my breakfast. Just added one thing, completely eradicated all my morning snacking. It doesn't even occur to me. So thank you for that.

Why'd you write it? Who's it for? And what's the core message?

Megan Hansen: Well, I wrote it because we were working together, and you told me that would need to be my next step. And you didn't tell me how hard it was gonna be. And that was probably a good thing because I don't know if I'd have done it.

Both: Laughter

Les McKeown: I did yeah. I don't wanna make this, podcast about me, and I'm not going to, I'm gonna say something about you, and I think I shared this with you at the time. So I coach in the way we work together, maybe 10 to 12 people at a time. So I might have 15 in a year, because we have year long engagements. Over the years, it maybe has been 15-20 people that I have thought, they have a book in them, first of all.

But that's actually not that important. A book would be really good for them. Every one of the folks that I then said to them, you should do this, have said, that's absolutely right. Only two people ever did it. And you did it, like that. You just said yes.

Megan Hansen: You've never shared that with me.

Les McKeown: You just said yes. And the next call we had, which was a month later, you had the table of contents, then the first chapter ready. And I stopped asking 'cause I was embarrassing myself because I would ask, "how's it progressing?" And like, you'd hold up the first draft, you'd tell me you'd got your publisher. So back to you. I just wanted to say congratulations. It's fantastic that you'd done it.

So who's it for? And and what's the core message if you were to distill it?

Megan Hansen: Yeah, you know, it's really for anyone who has been struggling with food and their weight for years. I also do think that anyone who is just interested in learning more about their metabolic health and feeling really freaking great every day can get a lot out of it.

I know you've read it, but I really wrote it for the person who has been struggling with food and their weight because they've been so sucked into what the diet industry has told them works. And they've known that it doesn't, because they've been at this for years.

And I wanted to just teach them how their body works and remove this idea that weight loss is about a math equation, and that your body is really more like a biology project. And I walk them through what I consider to be the six pillars to a healthy metabolism, which is blood sugar control, muscle, movement, sleep, stress management, and gut health.

And each one is a chapter. And I walk through why it's important, how it impacts your metabolism. And I look at all six of these as kind of an ecosystem. They all affect each other. They're all playing off of each other at all times. And so when one is off, it can affect the entire ecosystem.

And what I wanted to really get across is that when you understand, when you have that knowledge, your body's not a project. It's not just gonna be a 30 day thing, like, I'm doing this and I'm gonna have a start and a stop date. But this is something that you can do for your entire life, and you can lose weight, you can feel good, you're gonna live longer.

Like this is the kind of stuff that is gonna impact how long you can live. It's gonna impact how you feel every single day when you wake up in the morning. And it's a book that was really just written to be empowering for people who have felt really, like they've had their power taken away from them by dieting.

Les McKeown: I think one of the target, demographics that I relate to a lot, and by the way, anybody who's listening to this, if it's a topic that's of interest to you, we'll tell you where to get the book in a moment or two.

But you should just go sign up for Megan's, weekly newsletter, comes out on a Sunday night. I mean this, this is absolutely the truth. I think at the moment, it's the only, and I subscribe to hundreds of things, for all sorts of different reasons, mostly research. I read it every time it comes in. And the key reason I read it, to be quite honest with you, is your voice, your writing voice is just tremendous. You're a remarkable writer.

Megan Hansen: Thank you.

Les McKeown: You combine real information with a sort of sassy, you know, I can't stop in the middle of a sentence. I've got to see how you're gonna finish this. So you're really good at that.

So do sign up for Megan's free newsletter. But one of the things that you talk about is something that I've battled with all my life. And with my own trainer, I've lost 62 pounds. I'm in the best health I've ever been in my whole life. I'm 67 years of age. But still, Friday lunchtime comes and mentally the shutters go up until Sunday night. And you talk a lot about that.

Share a little bit about what's going on there. I don't do 1200 calories, but I eat really disciplined Monday morning through to Friday lunchtime, and then something happens. What's happening there?

Megan Hansen: I think first of all, you're looking at your week as something that is separate from the weekend. And yes, I know, I understand, it is. Because we have a totally different schedule. But when you separate the two, you're saying, so during the week, I'm really, really good. And then the weekend is something separate.

So how do you not do that? How do you just combine all of it? And for most people, at least that I find, and I'll be honest, I work primarily with women, but it's kind of loosening the reins a little bit just across the board.

And it's not being so incredibly disciplined all week where you're militant about your eating, because you can't do that on the weekend. I mean, if you wanna have a social life, like you're gonna go out to dinner, you're gonna go and do things.

So how can you just kind of loosen things up so that the week is maybe not like perfect, but it's pretty good. And then the weekend is also pretty good, you know, not perfect, but pretty good, right? And so I think it's just that, that mindset shift.

Les McKeown: Isn't that remarkable. And yeah, and you know, that's what I've learned from you and from your book. And you know, when that began to dawn on me, I realized something, I don't weigh myself at the weekends. I weigh myself every morning, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and I don't weigh myself at the weekends.

And that's exactly what's happening. I'm making a disconnect, which is ridiculous. I mean, here am I. I think I'm a reasonably intelligent, logical individual. I pride myself on pattern recognition and it took me to page 132 or something to just have that bolt of lightning realization that that was what was going on.

Megan Hansen: So wait, so have you started weighing yourself on the weekends?

Les McKeown: I do. Yeah, I do.

Megan Hansen: Oh, good. Okay, good.

Les McKeown: I thought it was better coming from you than it coming from me. I've started doing exactly what you teach in the book, which is I just don't get hyper during the week. but I eat really healthily and I do the same at the weekend.

And as you said. And it was one of the things that we spent some time, looking at, whenever we were building your growth plan. Most of your work is with women. Is the book just for women do you think?

Megan Hansen: No, I don't. When you read it, I do direct some of my language more towards women, but when men do this, it's actually funny because a lot of times I'll have like the girlfriend or the wife sign up for the program or read the book, and then they're like, "oh, my husband's gonna do this along with me". And then they're like, "yeah, my husband lost 10 pounds in the first week". It's just the way that it goes.

And you know why that is? It's because men do have a lot more muscle mass, and so you have a higher metabolic rate and it's just easier to see results. And we talk about that in the book, of course.

But this can apply to anybody because metabolism is metabolism, you know, it doesn't change. Men and women's bodies are different, but these are really foundational. This is like foundational stuff in this book. So it can easily apply to men or women across the board.

Les McKeown: Fantastic. The book is available in all the great places where books are sold, but where can people go learn more about you and read a bit more about metabolism?

Megan Hansen: Well, I mean, you can always find me on Instagram. I'm 'Megan the dietician' on Instagram. I also have a program account, which is the 'Metabolism Makeover'. And that's just more like your straightforward nutrition stuff. And if you follow me, it's a little more, you know, leadership and inspiration. Of course, you can find me on the website.

And we have actually a really good freebie that kind of goes through the five healthy habits that you should drop if you actually want to lose weight.

And I think this is a really good place to start, if any of this podcast has interested you at all, because you're gonna find there's probably a lot of things that you're doing if you've been in diet culture, or even if not, like, even if you think that you're not a dieter, trust me. We're getting these messages all the time and there's so many little things that we do that are actually holding us back from weight loss that we think we're doing right. And so I'll send that to you if you wanna add it to the show notes.

Les McKeown: That'll be fantastic. And for our members, I'd love if you would just give them a little insight. What are maybe two or three of those tips that they're gonna find in that pdf because we'll put the link for the pdf in the show notes below.

Megan Hansen: So one of my favorites is to stop setting your alarm for four o'clock in the morning and getting up and working out, unless you've gone to bed at eight, nine o'clock or a reasonable hour.

So if you can't fit your workout in because it's going to disrupt your sleep, I do not want you to fit your workout in. And I walk through the reasons why this is so incredibly important, and I have examples of clients that I have, that have stopped doing this and instantly started dropping weight, even working out less.

Les McKeown: Wow.

Megan Hansen: So that's a really big one. And then another one is to stop counting calories. Now, I will say that there is a time and a place for calorie counting, macro counting, but if you're someone who is just really obsessed with good food, bad food, tracking, the most important thing that we have to do right now is get you back in touch with your hunger and satiety hormones.

And so I kind of walk you through how to do that by managing your blood sugar and give you some of these basics around how to manage your blood sugar, which in turn impacts your hunger and satiety hormones.

Because if you think about it, if you can't recognize hunger and you can't recognize when you're full, I don't care how hard you try, and how much you track and how much effort you put into this, you are never gonna see sustainable weight loss ever.

Les McKeown: Right. Right.

Megan Hansen: So those are two good ones.

Les McKeown: I love that. And again, reading the book, and, you know, I'll just say it again, I think it's a book that everybody should read. I had pretty much got the hunger recognition thing right. I remember reading once and it revolutionized stuff for me, "never eat until you're hungry enough that you could eat an apple".

Megan Hansen: That is funny.

Les McKeown: And the other part was then "eat an Apple". but that clicked for me and it works. It's like a little trigger I can say, would I eat an apple, then I'm hungry. But I had completely lost touch with my own sense of satiety. And that was a wake up call for me, to really re-engage with that.

Well, Megan, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing this. It's been an absolute pleasure to have a grandstand seat watching you build a remarkable business. And I hope you'll come back in a few years when you've got 75,000 in your community and tell us how that growth has gone too.

Megan Hansen: I will.

Les McKeown: Bye.