Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.151 Why Diets Fail Women Over 50—And What Actually Works with Karen Karlsen

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 151

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Think Your Best Years Are Behind You? Think Again.

If you're in midlife and wondering why your body suddenly feels like it's working against you—fatigue, stubborn weight, poor sleep—you are so not alone. But here’s the truth: it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this episode, I sit down with Karen Karlsen, Faster Way coach and pro-aging advocate, who transformed her health after a shocking prediabetes diagnosis in her 50s. Now thriving at 60, Karen shares how she ditched diet culture and embraced a smarter approach—focusing on strength training, macro tracking, and real food—to get her energy, sleep, and metabolism back on track.

We bust some major midlife myths—like why eating less is not the answer, how protein is your best friend after 50, and why personalization is the key to real, lasting results. Karen even shares how she uses a continuous glucose monitor to dial in her nutrition and how hormone therapy and better sleep changed everything.

If you’re tired of feeling stuck, invisible, or confused by your changing body, this episode is your wake-up call. Aging well isn’t just possible—it’s powerful. And it starts here.

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🎧 Hit play and let’s rewrite the midlife narrative—together.

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Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan

Have questions about Faster Way? Feel free to reach out.
mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

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Michele Folan:

Midlife can feel like a turning point, one where your body seems to be working against you. The things that used to keep you fit don't seem to work anymore. Weight gain creeps in out of nowhere and the frustration is real. But here's the good news you have more control than you think. If you've ever felt like midlife is working against you, this episode will inspire you to get back in the driver's seat against you. This episode will inspire you to get back in the driver's seat. Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife.

Michele Folan:

I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend, and this is Asking for a Friend. Welcome to the show everyone. Today, I'm joined by Karen Karlsen, a fellow Faster Way coach and pro-aging advocate, who is proving that it's never too late to feel strong, confident and in control of your health. At almost 61, she's in the best shape of her life, but she didn't start here. She had to overcome midlife health challenges, prediabetes and a tough family history to get where she is today. In this conversation, we're going to tackle the real reasons midlife weight gain happens, what women need to focus on now for long-term health, and how fitness goals evolve as we age, we also dive into HRT, some skin strategies, self-care non-negotiables and what it really takes to feel amazing into your 60s, 70s and beyond. Karen Karlsen, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Karen Karlsen:

Oh, I'm excited to be here, Michele. I am such a fan of you and I love your reels and how you've picked up video so fast. Right, You're an audio queen, but you picked up the video really quickly.

Michele Folan:

It's such a learning curve right.

Karen Karlsen:

I know, I know, I mean, I took courses to learn how to you know, do that and for your listeners, you must follow Michele on Instagram and you can see sort of her journey into video as well, and she's just good at media. She's just good at media.

Michele Folan:

Oh, you're very kind, I'm not, you know, I don't feel that way, you know here. But here's the thing, and we can talk a little bit about this is the imposter syndrome, and I posted something on a real or not real, it was my stories earlier. It was something that Mel Robbins said and she she basically said if you let fear of what other people think hold you back, then you are a prisoner of other people's opinions. Yeah, and we're going to talk about that. It's so true. I mean.

Karen Karlsen:

I get deer in the headlight syndrome all the time. And one thing that really helps me and you could apply this in any area of your life one thing that really helps me if you're a public speaker or you're ever on stage or on camera, if you just sort of think of yourself as that person is an avatar of yourself. It's not really you, right? It's not you, it's just a projection of you. So you feel like I have a lot less to lose and I really I hope people like me, but I really don't care and I'm not invested if they don't, you know, if they don't like me.

Michele Folan:

But don't you think some of that comes with age, that it's the I don't give an F factor, you know?

Karen Karlsen:

It's so funny we all want to think that we're there Like I don't give an F, but when it comes down to it we really do like the people, especially the people that matter. We hope they think the best of us and it's not like we're orchestrating our behavior to sort of fit a mold of what anybody else's expectations. But maybe we just go about life a little more freely when we release ourselves of just worrying all the time about how we're seen, how we look. I'm still working on that.

Michele Folan:

I'm still working on that, yeah, and I have a whole section of just this kind of conversation coming up here and, as always, I always get started and I really want you to tell the audience a little bit more about you, where you're from, kids, all the fun stuff.

Karen Karlsen:

I'm just a normal girl I want to say girl instead of woman because I do. I feel young and youthful. I'm just a normal girl like you that you know, turned 60 and happened to realize, wow, this aging thing is really going to happen. I've raised three kids. Like that's done. I'm, you know I'm married 33 years soon to the same wonderful person man I love very much.

Karen Karlsen:

Congrats, and you know I split my time between Oregon and California and the internet internet and Instagram.

Karen Karlsen:

Instagram is my home and TikTok.

Karen Karlsen:

I have a presence on TikTok and Facebook, but I like to talk and I like to encourage women and that's how I got started, like you, in the faster way, we found something that was working for our health and at this age and stage of life, it's like what a great opportunity to actually be blessed, to be a coach and help other women get to feel like we do at this age, once they learn these secrets and once you have this platform to talk about it, it is just so wonderful to be able to have the impact and, yes, some influence other people's healthy lives, yeah, so you know, I am, I'm, I'm blessed to be able to do what I do.

Karen Karlsen:

I have some empty nester syndrome right now. You know I do miss my kids but having meaningful, purposeful work like what you're doing and what I'm doing it really helps smooth that transition that a lot of women who didn't plan for the future when they were kids, who were in high school, are not having right now. They're having shock over the fact that their kids are gone, their purpose is done and they get into a depression. And it's real, it really happens. But I just think if you can find something meaningful to do to ease that transition, you're going to have a much easier time of the empty nesting thing.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, actually, I recorded a podcast last week. I haven't dropped that one yet, but it is all about managing empty nester syndrome. She's an empty nester coach and that's what she does. She helps women find purpose in midlife to get over that hump of okay, what's next? Next?

Karen Karlsen:

Yeah, yeah, it really is real and I can see how it could really sort of take over and get into your psyche that you're done. And I think that's that point where midlife women start feeling maybe invisible because they don't really have all these teams and shows and all the stuff they were involved in with their kids to show up for anymore, to lead anymore. So that's why I always say start thinking quite young. When your last kid's a freshman in high school, start thinking about what can I be doing now to lay the tracks so that I can grow myself once they're gone?

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and it can be volunteering, it could be learning a new hobby or sport or something. It could be so many things, but I agree with you I think playing it forward in your mind and trying to figure out what that looks like is such great advice. You know, I want to talk a little bit about your journey because, Karen, your health journey is, I think, very inspiring. Can you kind of take us back to what sparked your own transformation?

Karen Karlsen:

Well, I think, you know, there was a point in my early fifties where I started. You know I had some clues to things, but I thought it was just because I was getting older, just because I was middle-aged. No one really talked to me much about menopause. But I started feeling really tired. I started sleeping poorly. I started gaining belly fat, a flab. I didn't like the way I felt, but I wasn't aware that I was losing muscle. I was not aware. I just felt not 100%, and I knew that that would be expected in menopause, but I just wasn't.

Karen Karlsen:

I didn't educate myself well enough in my late forties about this, so I suffered a little bit for it. So I had a friend at the time, at around age 53, she said hey, listen, I joined this new program called the Faster Way to Fat Loss. You've got to try this. There's this new thing they're doing called macro tracking and you've got to learn it. I've had such great results.

Karen Karlsen:

My friend is a coach, so I that's what I did, and I did it mostly because, at the insisting of a friend of mine, right, and although I wasn't obese, although I wasn't hyper-focused on weight gain, I thought well, I'm going to do this and and I can learn some things that I want to shave off this belly fat. It started a transformation that changed my life up until now, at age almost 61. It was probably the most important thing I did for my health, for my awareness of my poor nutrition and ineffective exercise. So once I started that, and also around the same time got a diagnosis of prediabetes. So around the same time got a diagnosis of prediabetes, which to me was shocking since I had no indication on my body of that, other than feeling tired, low energy.

Michele Folan:

I didn't really have the obesity that most people think of yeah, and I've seen your before pictures. Yeah, yeah, and I've seen your before pictures and you did not embody what you would think a typical person with prediabetes would look like. You didn't have a large middle, you weren't overall overweight and I think that's the lookout, right. You don't know what's going on on the inside, you don't.

Karen Karlsen:

And I didn't know, since I didn't have the education or coaching certifications that I have now. I didn't know at the time that with estrogen loss comes this insulin resistance pattern that most women around that age are completely unaware of. Either they haven't been educated by anyone else or their doctors have not alerted them to their labs slowly showing an increase in insulin resistance. Or maybe their doctor just sweeps that under the rug and says you know what? We're going to watch this for a while. So that's what happened with me, and that was about the time I started in the Faster Way, realizing sort of I need to find out what my personal carb threshold is and at the same time, that's when you and I were also learning at the beginning how much protein we need to keep on this muscle on our frame so that we can have better metabolic health as we age.

Karen Karlsen:

I did not know how crucial that muscle component was in controlling this pre-diabetic condition. That's very stubborn, and then I still am going in and out of it. Like you know, I'll have great blood work, you know, at one period and then go back six months later and it's ticked up to tenths of a point again. So I'm always feeling like I'm teetering in and out, so it's something I'm going to have to watch the rest of my life, but now they're closely associating blood sugar issues with Alzheimer's. So it's something that everyone needs to be aware of, and I like to use my platforms to stress the importance and bring that to the fore, because most women are just so hyper-focused on calories and fat and getting this fat off and wearing a dress you know to be in a wedding, things like that. They're focused on that rather than what is going on inside me. That is causing all this extra fluff and discomfort that I feel.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, you know I try to stress with my clients that this program Faster Way really works from the inside out. We're not a quick fix. You know, be in that wedding dress, for you know four weeks, in four weeks, right it's. It's really about let's address all the stuff going on on the inside because then eventually it's going to start showing on the outside and I swear to people I'm like you just have to trust the system here. But I am curious, Karen, comparing your diet and lifestyle now, how different is it than when you were before, before you started?

Karen Karlsen:

It is radically different. Okay, you know because of just what I have learned through the certification processes macro certifications, Faster Way certification and then I just read health science books for fun all the time. We're such nerds aren't we yeah?

Karen Karlsen:

I love it because I love to be able to impart that to people who are struggling as well. But in my early 50s my thing was as long as I don't go over 1,200 calories a day, I'm fine. So it doesn't matter if it's chips and margaritas which there was a lot of that, a lot more alcohol than a lot more processed foods, because I wasn't aware of what those things do to our bodies over time and how they are illness inducers. So in my late 40s, early 50s, I'm just pretty much thinking about I'll be fine as long as I just don't go over this certain amount of calories per day. And this is very common mentality still to this day. And then people women will think well, if I ate X amount of calories and I walked three miles with my friend, then I can subtract that from my total. So we have this constant bank account thing going.

Karen Karlsen:

But once I learned what real whole food nutrition can do for your health, for your energy levels, for your insulin resistance, for your healthy glucose uptake, along with training, the right way for muscle growth and retention at this age, once I learned those strategies, all that food started becoming so tempting to me. So Faster Way meal guides. They're beautiful, they're wonderfully designed, simple four-item things pretty much that are just so satisfying because you get so much food. So once I realized this food, this kind of eating and macro tracking and carb cycling is giving me far more energy and far more health to fulfill my purpose in life than how I was eating before. And so once you start noticing these differences on your body, in your mind, your mood is more upbeat, because those are high vibe foods.

Karen Karlsen:

You know fruits and vegetables and really you know wonderful grass fed beef and you know nice chicken and nice eggs. Those things all are information to our bodies. And so you start falling in love with the foods that are making you feel good and look good, exactly, yeah. And so it's much easier to now leave behind the things are big detractors, like alcohol. It's much easier to leave it behind when you realize that without it you're such a different person. You are far more effective than everybody around you that is still drinking, still eating chips, still staying up late, you know, still driving through Chick-fil-A. Yeah, you know you. You fall in love and you change your ways because of of how you feel and you get feedback that that this lifestyle is working.

Michele Folan:

Karen, we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Skipping breakfast or grabbing a protein bar, a salad for lunch and, okay, dinner and you wonder why you're not losing weight. Listen, I get it. You're trying to be good, but midlife metabolism doesn't work that way. Eating less isn't the answer. Eating right is. In my six-week midlife reset I'll show you how to fuel your body for fat loss without starving yourself. Train in a way that actually reshapes your body and finally break free from the cycle of frustration. But you have to take that first step. Door's closed soon. Don't wait. Click the link in the show notes and let's get to work. We are back.

Michele Folan:

You know you said something before about 1200 calories a day, and countless times I've had clients. I have them put in what they would normally eat on a normal day, like before we even start tracking your macros with the Faster Way menu. I want you to take a day or two and just track your food as you would normally eat, and it's always pretty astounding to them to find out they undereating woefully or they just weren't getting enough protein. I think the first complaint I get and I'm doing air quotes complaint is that this is too much food. I can't possibly eat all this food. I'm like, oh yeah, you can, you will. It might take you a week or so to get adjusted to it, but you learn that your body really needs it. You're resetting your metabolism to function at a much higher level than what it was before, and then it starts to click.

Karen Karlsen:

Yeah, and you're resetting your ghrelin and leptin hormones, your hunger and satiety hormones too, and I get the same. It's crazy because this week is prep week in the Faster Way and I know what comments are coming. It's going to be this is too much food for me. Even if they know they're in a 15% deficit, it's going to feel like a lot because there's volume involved and women, our age, are so used to restriction. There's a myth that you should start reducing your portion sizes as you age, and it can't be farther from the truth. Once you start reducing portions without tracking macros, you're on this slippery slope to malnourishment, to impending disease, to muscle loss, to sarcopenia, to osteoporosis, because if you don't have muscle, you can't keep your bone. Right. So, yeah, I wish I just like you, I just wish women would get on board with you know, just finding out what their protein macro minimums are to start with. Yeah, you know, even if they're not in a program, they should be aiming for 30 grams of protein at every meal.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, minimum, right, yeah. So I think you know 90 to a hundred grams of protein a day is is really kind of the minimum threshold for most women at this point. So you wear a continuous glucose monitor. How has this helped you kind of navigate your own macros and how you're eating now?

Karen Karlsen:

Well, a continuous glucose monitor is great because it's giving you personalized, real-time data on where your blood sugar is, how long it stays high, how well it adapts to certain stimuli and you get, over time, a real good window on. You get, over time, a real good window on how your insulin is able to handle sugar, and so to me, it's been the most valuable tool because there's no other way to look inside your blood. We can't do that. You could finger prick and all that, but it's going to be hard for you to string the data together the way a CGM can do. And I felt that the system that I used was so thorough on the education that I had education modules in there that taught me far more than any Instagram post could, far more than my doctor ever had time to describe to me, and so once I started monitoring that, I realized, oh, this thing is another tool that's going to help me figure out my carb threshold. So, for instance, I can't eat a half of a grapefruit like somebody else can, because it will spike me like crazy If I had a big piece of protein and I ate this grapefruit last and maybe cut that in half and just had a quarter of it, then my insulin could handle that. So that's good information. And so how that affects my macros is I dropped my carb macros and the carbs that I'm having are lower glycemic carbs. When I want the higher glycemic carbs, I have to reduce the portion.

Karen Karlsen:

So last night on Instagram I showed my plate versus my husband's and I had, you know, a quarter cup, maybe a third of a cup of roasted sweet potato on my plate, where he had like three quarters of a cup, because that's what I know. That's the starch amount I know I could probably get away with, but I got to eat the ground beef on the plate first, the cottage cheese on the plate first, the vegetables on the plate first, and then I save that little small amount of starch, which I really enjoy, but I know now my limit. So I eat that last and then the glucose monitor tells me could I handle that or not? And over time. You don't have to be on the glucose monitor all the time, but with consistent data and with you taking notes and tracking the data over time, you know very well what you can get away with.

Karen Karlsen:

So you can go for periods without the CGM on and use what you've learned. So, for instance, I'll have berries with breakfast, but rarely will I have a banana. If I have a banana, it's going to be half of a banana smothered in peanut butter. Like there are things you learn about your own carb intake, what you can handle and what your boundaries are right. So now I know my boundary is I cannot have a banana, a whole banana, on an empty stomach. That is a sugar bomb for me, which means a crash afterwards.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and that feels terrible right.

Karen Karlsen:

Yeah, it feels awful. I don't have time to sleep the sugar off during my day, so that's too much of a liability for me. So a CGM really helps if you know you have a little insulin resistance. It gives you personal information. So a lot of women can drink coffee on an empty stomach and not have a glucose spike. I can't. So it's very, very individual. And so when people want me to test things like can you test a piece of cheesecake for me and just let me know what happens to you, I just say no because I'm not. I wouldn't do that normally and I don't want to test anything that would be harmful to me in any way.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and it's very individual, too Very. I mean you know there's things that would spike my blood sugar and not spike your, so it's just you can't. Yeah, it's a really good tool. It's a really great tool. You confidently show what's possible with fitness in midlife and I love that about you. You put it out there. But I think sometimes when we do that, it comes with some criticism and I want to know how you handle that.

Karen Karlsen:

Well, it kills me to post bathing suit pictures and I love to address the criticism because it gives me an opportunity to say actually why I'm doing that. It's not because I'm trying to be a thirst trap to men at 60. I only talk to women on the internet and I inspire women with not only just my before and after pictures, but that I keep going. That it is a lifestyle. I didn't do a diet and then quit. I didn't go work out for three months and then quit. It's a work in progress every day and my health shows on my body and so that's what's inspiring and so that's why I do it. And so here comes that separation where I'm like oh, they're criticizing the character, they're criticizing my avatar, so it can't hurt me. It can't hurt me.

Karen Karlsen:

You know I'm not out there doing solicitous posts. You know, for attention or anything like that. Yeah, look, go ahead, look at my body. Like, go ahead, look at that, but know what I do and know my motivation for doing that. And you know people who follow me in earnest know that. But you know others there's going to be those outliers where you're going to get a lot of criticism like you're too thin.

Karen Karlsen:

I don't see any difference in your before and after pictures. Why do you need to parade in a bathing suit? Well, I did because I realized I got so much feedback from women saying you inspire me so much. I want to get myself back. I want to be able to have your confidence. That's what women want. They want confidence and I love to teach that. Confidence isn't coming from just how you stand there and look on the beach in a bathing suit. The confidence comes from actually doing, doing, repeating, repeating, and to the best of your ability. Then that makes you realize I'm doing the best I can, so I'm going to show up as I am and if that happens to look really good to you and it inspires you, then I'm doing the right thing.

Michele Folan:

You know, a couple of weeks ago I did a post and I showed my stomach for the first time and I had a client. She said do you know why I signed up to work with you? And I said, no, I don't. I listened to your podcast.

Michele Folan:

But she said, when you showed your abs on Instagram, I said to myself I want that, I want that's what I'm, I'm going for that. I want to feel like that in my body. And I said, okay, you just validated that. That was okay, cause you, you, you, you sit there and you go. Should I share? Should I share? Should I hit that button to put it out there? And I just did. I just said screw it, I'm, I'm doing it and and you know my before pictures may not look that drastic right, but it's how I felt. So when I look at my before pictures and I look at my current pictures, I see someone very different, because it's not just how I look, as I was getting very uncomfortable in my body at that point, but it's also how I feel about myself. So, yeah, big, big difference there, absolutely.

Karen Karlsen:

And the thing about the belly thing that's so freeing is and I always love to point out, like, yeah, I'll show you my belly, but I'm also going to show you my loose skin, my stretch marks. My estrogen patch will be there, right, like I'll do it right now. Look, I mean, it's solid under here, but, like, this is skin and this is subcutaneous fat, right, and it is okay. It is like, okay, we're always going to have marks of living on our body, and that's different, though, than visceral, dangerous fat around your organs that makes your belly protrude, right, yeah, that's a different thing altogether.

Karen Karlsen:

And women do have this really complicated relationship with our bellies, mostly because we are growing humans in there and we go through these drastic changes and they leave us marred. They really do. I mean, you could go get a tummy tuck. That's great. I wouldn't judge whatever. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to go through that. Wouldn't judge whatever I'm not. I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to go through that.

Karen Karlsen:

But because to me the most important thing is, yes, it's nice and flat under there, the muscles are hard, they're supporting my spine, my posture's better because of the way I care for my core, but the older I get, the less of a vanity my belly is Like my waist measurement is not going to go down any further and when my waist measurement goes really low, it means I'm underweight, it means everything else is too thin and I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah, so we have a fraught relationship with our bellies and it does feel so good when it's under control, when you feel your metabolism humming along and your belly is flatter and not bloated and you can see some ab definition from your core work, from your heavy lifting, even squats, even overhead presses. Those all inform our core muscles. When you see that it is empowering, you feel like you're doing your best and even though it's not perfect, you still feel like showing up and you're confident because you know you're doing the best you can.

Michele Folan:

And I would say too you talked about our bodies are marred, right, but it's part of the journey and we have to celebrate our bodies at any age because they're pretty remarkable what they're able to do Yep, and we're fed this line that you know, as you age, you can expect they tell us what we can expect and I think that can sort of be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Karen Karlsen:

Like you can expect joint pain, you can expect bloating. You can expect to start wearing special swimwear that hides this and that skirted swimwear. You can expect to have a slower metabolism. I just am here to say BS. Like, no, no, Like I feel like I'm proof and you're proof, that we can go on like this feeling and looking like this for a long, good stretch. But it's not like you get on the Peloton and go really, really fast and then take your feet off and the machine keeps going. You have to keep pedaling in place, right, and we may have periods, Michele, where we're like we're just in a holding pattern and then, after a good, refreshing holding pattern period of a few months, maybe we're ready to pick it up again, pick up steam, and so we are still able at this age. And there's people older than us online showing their fitness journeys and I love watching those older women, 10 years older than me, because they're showing us and we're showing the younger ones that you don't have to listen to and fulfill that prophecy of what's expected for aging.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and you know what else? I have clients that are in their 70s, and they're getting results. I mean, my clients aren't typically 40, right, they're definitely older and they're getting results because they've. They're putting in the time, they want to do this, and so it's never too late to to focus on on this health and wellness journey. Never.

Karen Karlsen:

Not at all, not at all. They, they, they can modify and moderate the program with good coaching. I have clients in their seventies too. I had one for a long time. She's over 80 now and it's phenomenal because they come back and their doctors are so pleased with their blood work, with their physicalness right, and they want at that point in their 70s they're really aiming for a long health span and longevity, right. So you can't go wrong with faster weight programming at any age, really yeah.

Michele Folan:

And honestly I mean I know the workouts. To look at them may feel a little intimidating at first because you have to understand. You can modify the workouts, but so much of this is what you're putting in your body. It's your nutrition that really makes the biggest impact.

Karen Karlsen:

Yep, first and foremost, I mean we're eating for energy, because aging is a state of your energy. That's all it really is.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, yeah, I like that. That's a good one. Yeah, you brought up HRT earlier. When did you start hormone replacement therapy?

Karen Karlsen:

I started that around 48 when I got my first symptom, which was night sweats. So I still don't know what it's like to have a hot flash, but I was afflicted with night sweats and so I started on a low dose then and then over the years's you know, 13 years ago almost and over the years I have been on probably every form except for pellets. I have changed my doses often gosh, it's been such a journey. But I I, during the times where I knew the estrogen wasn't getting through to me and um, what? Before I found out about testosterone, I realized like I don't want to be without this. I don't want to because I feel way better when I'm on it.

Karen Karlsen:

And you know now my biggest fear and a lot of women fear that our doctors are going to yank it away from us after 60. When they know now, with current information, that you can be on it forever, you can be on it forever. So I don't want to pull the plug on myself just because I'm a certain age, because I know how I feel on it and I also know the benefits that I'm getting from it as far as you know keeping my tissues soft and supple, preventing heart disease, preventing Alzheimer's, those things, bone loss, bone loss these things are, you know, very important to me for fulfilling that picture I see of myself at 80. So I just am, you know, I'm just so grateful that I've had it. Yeah, and you know, it's always a work in progress. It sometimes it needs adjustments.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, They'll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands. I mean, I'm not, I, I will. I will make sure that I always have a doctor or healthcare provider that will allow me to continue on Um. I have no problem leaving um a healthcare provider if they're not telling me what I want to hear.

Karen Karlsen:

Well, you know what. I'll tell you this story, michelle. Um, I was at my medical system doctor this winter, for you know, I had had some bleeding problems and a biopsy and everything, and I'm fine, I'm fine. But the difference between that doctor and my functional women's health doctor were night and day. So the doctor, the medical system doctor, said, oh, I can go ahead and prescribe your estrogen. And I said, well, I'm currently using two patches. And she said, oh, no, that's not the standard. And I said, well, I'm not the standard, I'm not the standard. It's hard for me to get estrogen transdermally, so I use two of those big patches. And she was like, well, we're just not comfortable with that here. I was just really, really surprised. And she was like, well, we're just not comfortable with that here. Like I was just really, really surprised.

Karen Karlsen:

And that doctor had to be 50 or over 50, a great doctor, great care for um, getting the biopsy done and examining the cells, and all that having an ultrasound, right. But I went right back to my functional medicine doctor and I'm like, hit me up, let's come on, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to increase that, we're going to bump this, we're going to bump the progesterone. So I, I want a doctor like you, that is, a thought leading doctor Like those are the ones I follow on Instagram. I believe them, I trust them and I'm under the care of one. So I, you know, I just I want women to be aware of what their choices are and that they can go ahead and shop different doctors. You'll know very quickly which ones are on board with HRT.

Michele Folan:

Yep, you know, and part of that, too, is our skin, and I'm very curious, Karen Karlsen what are your favorite skincare strategies? Are there any products that you love to maintain your healthy glow?

Karen Karlsen:

Yeah, thank you. I started this when I was about 23. That's when I got my first eye cream and I think genetically I had good skin. But once I realized I have this great skin, I'm going to take care of it. So, around 30, I just started seriously with well.

Karen Karlsen:

At 23, I started with Retin-A for adult acne and that is one of my mainstays. I've been using that all these years and some people want you to think that that's toxic and dangerous and whatever. Well, I'm a living testament to it working because I have a long enough anecdotal period of usage. So that is in the regimen. Absolutely I um, if, if someone is following me on Instagram and comments the word skin on any post, I'll give you a history of my, my skin stories for starting in my twenties. But you but gradually, decade by decade, and as these new technologies and information came out, I jumped on vitamin C every day under my sunscreen, under my makeup, non-negotiable. After pregnancy I had horrible melasma, so that's when I started using laser treatments and light treatments like Fraxel and Intense Pulse Light and Broadband Light. Not all the time because it's expensive using laser treatments and light treatments like Fraxel and intense pulse light and broadband light. Not all the time because it's expensive. Just a few times a year, maybe one big laser per year.

Karen Karlsen:

I think keeping my face out of the sun was a great thing, but my neck didn't really get the memo, so it's showing its age, and so do my hands because of carpooling in the sun in California all those years. Sure, so gosh. And what else do I do now? I mean, I try to just keep it really, really simple. I'm I'm into tallow products right now because they're they're so moisturizing. I feel so great when I wake up in the morning. My skin feels really good in the morning. I love red light therapy. I've been using a red light mask for five years now and I swear that has kept my pores small and fine lines at bay. I don't mind lines. What I don't love about aging is sagging and volume loss. So I talked to Natalie Jill in a podcast earlier in the month about a recent procedure I had done on my eyelids because I felt like God, I was looking tired to myself and when other people comment are you tired? That really is upsetting to me. When I'm not, you're right, when I'm not. So you know, he transferred a little fat at the time right into my orbital area, which kind of it's like? It's your own filler, like to have your fat put there.

Karen Karlsen:

But what makes skin healthy is also from the inside out. I mean, I eat an apple, a lemon and avocado every day. Oh, that's funny. And I eat. Yeah, I just love that. I look forward to those three things. They can be in any form, they can be in a blender, they can be on a salad, but I don't miss. And that also gives you a lot of fiber too, by the way. But I love nuts and I'm not afraid of fat. I think those girls who eat the healthy fats are the ones with beautiful skin. Look at those Mediterranean girls who eat olives and a lot of olive oil. Yeah, and they have beautiful skin. They slather on their faces. So there's that.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I think that's actually back to that inside out mentality is what you see on the outside, particularly with your skin, is probably a product of what you see on the outside, particularly with your skin is is probably a product of what you are ingesting every day the healthy foods.

Karen Karlsen:

It totally is, and the new clients also noticed this really fast because they're increasing their protein, which is, you know, contains all the aminos you need to build good skin. It has, you know, you get a collagen sort of profile in that. It has, you know, you get a collagen sort of profile in that, in your protein, your animal protein, I'm talking. They also increase their hydration and once they're on the ball about drinking water, they're like I can't believe my under eyes look so much better or my lines are plumping out again. So so much of it is just self-care. You know, from the inside out, sleep is super important. You'll notice after you can't get away with crap. Sleep anymore and wake up with glowing skin. No cream, no Botox, no, nothing is going to help with that aspect. So sleep is super important, important. And I would say, you know I love the sun. I get an hour of unprotected sun every day, but not on my face, not on my face. So you know that sunscreen has been a big part of it since the age of 30. Yeah, but now we have all these cool things coming up and I want to be on board. So I'm learning about exosomes. Have you heard about exosomes? Yes, I have Okay. So I've been using exosomes under my eyes, so that's a new thing I'm watching for. There's also products that there's not that much solid research on but that contain NAD in the thing.

Karen Karlsen:

But I'm of the camp like I'm going to try everything. I do, I try, I'm trying everything and, um, to the extent that I can reason through it, that's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I mean. Does it sound? Does it sound sensible to me? Would it be beneficial? I think supplements like collagen absolutely. I take it every single day, either in a mocktail or with coffee, because I know it works, because not just because my skin looks great at 61, but because I have less pain. And if I get sloppy and don't take collagen, I know right away I have this shoulder flare-up and a foot flare-up. When I get back on the ball, the pain goes away. So I know collagen works and it's a super well-studied supplement that everyone can take for better skin, hair tissue joints. Everyone can take collagen safely, just make sure it's a clean and trusted brand. That's what I would say.

Michele Folan:

I agree, yeah, and I think what Karen's trying to say is if things make sense in terms of the science, try it, see how it makes you feel. Now, my one call out about supplements and we've talked about this on the podcast before is you want to make sure it doesn't interact with something else you're taking. So always run those things by your doctor. But for the most part there's strong research behind it, then why not?

Karen Karlsen:

Yeah, and not everything has strong research behind it, but I consider myself sort of an outlier, like a biohacker, and I'm willing to experiment on myself, so I don't recommend things that didn't work for me right, but I'm willing to be a guinea pig. I'm on HRT and I understand there are some small risks, but I've had my risk profile assessed and they don't really apply to me. So so you know what I mean. Like I'm an outlier for taking HRT and continuing on it because I'm willing to experiment on myself, to feel good and you will. You will get. If you know how to listen to your body and see the signs on yourself, you will get. The feedback you're looking for on this product was bogus, or I think this is working.

Michele Folan:

Right, yep, I totally agree. One other question for you what is one of your self-care practices? That is a non-negotiable.

Karen Karlsen:

Okay, this isn't going to seem like self-care, because we think of that as like I'm going to go steam my face now, right, but for me it's it's sleep and I'm really uptight about it and I'm very disciplined because I know how bad it feels to have insomnia and lose your mind and lose your effectiveness, and it's really devastating. It's super isolating and lonely to have insomnia. So I really, really strive and I think you've talked to Morgan Adams, our friend. She's so great, so she was my sleep coach a couple years ago when I had a very bad insomniac episode that just sent me over the edge, and so ever since I worked with her, I've been in and out of some episodes, but so I'm very careful and protective about my sleep because that is the best self-care I can give myself.

Karen Karlsen:

I would, I would take sleep over a workout any day. Oh yeah, me too, I would. I would get the. I would stay in bed to get the extra sleep if my body was telling me I needed that. So I'm super protective about it. I start you know, we don't use overhead lights after sundown. I have yeah.

Karen Karlsen:

I changed the light bulbs in my house to these um, strainless lighting bulbs. They're like low wattage Amber bulbs. When we have company over I tell my husband we got to switch, we got to put the regular lights back in. People are going to think we're crazy. So like I have those bulbs, like if if I'm watching tv in bed it I wear blue light blockers. I have a red clip-on book light that I clip onto my book that I read with to get drowsy by no blue light in my eyes.

Karen Karlsen:

I'm trying not to give myself any stimulating information around bedtime. You know, I take an erbitonin, it's like an herbal melatonin. I take some very low dose, very just, let's call them gummies, and sometimes I take a tryptophan. That makes me really drowsy and just excited for sleep because I really want to induce that sleep urge, and so that's why it starts at about sundown. Yeah, and I sleep better now for it. And that's my self-care man. I just like. Sometimes I say no to trips. Sometimes I say no to, you know, like a girl's weekend that I know is going to be a rowdy thing where I'm, I'm out of control of my sleep. I'd rather get the sleep than go on that trip and risk messing myself up big time.

Michele Folan:

You're protecting your boundaries, Karen, and that is you know what's important to you, and I think that's awesome. Yeah, I would like you to tell the audience, Karen Karlsen.

Karen Karlsen:

Awesome, I would like you to tell the audience, Karen Karlsen, where they can find you. Thank you, okay. You can find me on Instagram under my name, Karen K-A-R-E-N-M Karlsen K-A-R-L-S-E-N. And there is where I talk about my health, wellness, offering the best products and things that I find, including the Faster Way program, and I'm also on TikTok at this boomer mom, and there I'm a little more unhinged. Tiktok's a completely different platform. It's not as polished. I talk more about generational things and it's a great place to connect with other people our age that remember the same things we do, because we're getting to that yummy nostalgia age where nostalgia just feels so fun and like, oh remember, remember we had the Donny Osmond lunchboxes. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Michele Folan:

So that's where I am on TikTok, I had a crush on Jimmy Osmond actually.

Karen Karlsen:

Oh God.

Michele Folan:

Jimmy on Jimmy Osmond. Actually, oh God, Jimmy, I met him in person. I think that's what that is so cute.

Karen Karlsen:

That's hilarious. On Facebook, just under my name, Karen Karlsen, K-A-R-L-S-E-N. I'd love to have you and welcome in. Welcome into my communities, and I hope you learned something.

Michele Folan:

I was going to say give Karen a follow. She's. She's a lot of fun and she'll make you think aging is for cool people.

Karen Karlsen:

It is. I mean there, there, there's a few sacrifices, honestly, yeah, there's a few sacrifices. You're, you're, you're going to be. Um, you might have different friends. You might lose some friends if, especially if, you stop drinking or start refusing drinks at social situations, you might realize like, okay, I'm an outlier, but you have to be ready to take it and handle it. And other people are watching you. Other people are watching your journey and how you respect yourself. Other people are watching your journey and how you respect yourself and that's going the other. But you're still. You're keeping the bar high for yourself and then that raises the bar for other people and that's how you impact lives.

Michele Folan:

I believe Karen Karlsen ages with balls. That's what I like to say.

Karen Karlsen:

We've got to have balls, guys. We've got to have balls to do this, to get through it and to support each other.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I absolutely agree and that's why I wanted you here today. Thank you, you're wonderful. Thank you, thanks for being here so fun. Hey, thanks for tuning in. Please rate and review the show where you listen to the podcast. And did you know that Asking for a Friend is available now to listen on YouTube? You can subscribe to the podcast there as well. Your support is appreciated and it helps others find the show. Thank you.