The amazing Cheryl Turner is a Gigi, fitness queen, Jesus fan and full of heart! Take a listen to her beautiful insights and love.
Hey y’all, welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law podcast, where connection, love, and a whole lot of fun come together. I’m LeAnn Austin, boy mom and teacher, turned master certified life coach. Who once had all the feelings, when cute girlies started dating my sons.
I had to learn a lot about love, boundaries, and connection, not just with my daughters-in-law, but with myself. That’s how Lovin My Daughter-in-law was born.
So if you’re craving more love, connection, and fun in your life, epecially the kind that starts from within, this podcast is for you.
Today’s episode #188: Fuel Your Body with Cheryl Turner
I love observing and connecting with other humans, especially noting how they feel and implement love into their lives and their relationships.
We have the amazing Cheryl sharing some beautiful love and relationship insights with us today. Alright Cheryl, tell us a little bit about you.
Hi, I am Cheryl Turner. I know LeAnn from the gym. We have taken many fitness classes together over the years and become friends. I’ve been teaching group fitness classes for a long time. I could probably say about 40 years since college. I remember my first time going to a corporate gym and I did not want to go. And then I became addicted to the fun that we have in classes and I started teaching. Anyway, all these years later, I teach pilates, I teach spin, I teach strength training classes.
I just love being healthy, fit and active. I have four adult children. One son still in college, but my three girls are married. Two have children. So I have grandchildren and I wanna stay active and healthy and be able to play with these guys. Because one of my greatest blessings is being called Gigi by these guys.
That is so amazing and I love, I love, love, love Cheryl’s classes. Oh my goodness. Like her Pilates, her spin, her muscle challenge, all of them. And she has taught me so much and it’s been fun. I’ve been taking her classes for a lot of years and it’s been even fun to watch her journey and her health journey. And I mean, she is fit and buff and amazing, and her classes are phenomenal.
So if you’re ever in Georgia, let me know and you can come to our classes. They’re fantastic. So I’m so glad you’re here, and I’m so glad you’re a Gigi too. That’s awesome. So fun. Thank you. All right, so how do you incorporate love into your business and life, and how does that impact your relationships?
I would say the best way for me to incorporate love is to speak to people. To talk to people, to get to know their name, call people by their name, and get to know them as a friend. And you know, I think we’re all in the customer service field, whether we are in fitness or corporate world or whatever.
We’re all serving each other, and I think the best way that we can serve each other is to serve through love, and that’s to get to know someone and be a friend. So I like to be with people, I like to ask them questions about their personal life. Do they have a family? And what do they like to do for fun?
That kind of thing. And then I have a connection so that the next time I see them, I can try to remember that connection and have something to talk to them about. People love to be made to feel special. And if you can talk to them and get to know them and be kind, then that’s showing love and helping them to, you know, appreciate you more as a friend, not just as an authority or whatever. So that’s how I do it.
I love it and you are so good at this. ’cause I get excited when I walk in your class ’cause you’re glad to see me and you’re glad to see everyone and you know their names and you connect with them and I think that makes a huge, huge difference. So I love that you do that and I love like when you’re singing, when we’re doing things, or when you are saying the number seven, like my husband and I always talk, he’s funny when he went to your class back a long, long time ago, but he always remembers you saying the number seven. ’cause you have a unique way of saying it during spin and it’s like seven or whatever, you know? It’s so fun. So anyway, an accent. Yes.
Alright, so tell me what is something you love about you and why? I love being in the health and fitness industry. I have through the years become more and more conscious of being healthy, being fit, and letting nutrition serve my body.
For so many years it was just, what can I eat quick? What can I eat that’s cheap? What can I eat that’s fast? And as I get older and I realize the importance of good health. I realize that food needs to fuel my body. That doesn’t mean I don’t love ice cream. I love ice cream and I can have that as a treat, but my primary food is fuel for my body. You know, if you think about a race horse, they’re not gonna go out and eat Cheetos and drink Coca-Cola in order to run the race. So I think of running the race as how can I fuel my body? And so I love being healthy in that way.
And then my career or my job is to help others with the same thing. So not only nutrition, but fitness and classes and Pilates. For me, I think Pilates is one of the missing links that we do cardio and we do weight training all day long, but we forget to train those deep core muscles. We forget to work on balance, we forget to work on flexibility or we don’t take the time. So I love being in the health and fitness industry. And helping others do that as well.
That’s so beautiful. And it’s interesting to me, Pilates and even the balance thing that we do every week, like I did not realize how not balanced I am a good chunk of the time. Yeah. And so just doing these little things, standing on one leg or whatever, that makes a huge difference. Stuff like that.
So it really does it can prevent injury, you know? Yes. Walking downstairs, getting in and out of your car. We’re thrown off balance in all of those things. Yeah. So if we can teach our body and train our muscles to help stabilize us when we’re in these off balance positions, hopefully we can prevent injury.
You know, nothing is certain and nothing’s a hundred percent proof, but if we can practice a little bit, then maybe when we are thrown off balance, then we can catch ourselves and not be injured, hopefully. Yeah.
Well, and I love that you teach this, you know, some of those, what muscles are we working or whatever as you’re teaching a class so people are more informed, oh, that’s my, whatever. I don’t know my muscles, but you know that’s what it is. And it helps strengthen that. So I love that you do that and you’re taking care of yourself as well as taking care of others, and just being an example to us. That’s beautiful. I love it.
All right, so I love talking about connection with others and with ourselves, and I think the daughter-in-law relationship is packed full of examples for us to learn from. So any thoughts about the mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, relationship?
It’s funny because I have zero daughters-in-law, however, I have three daughters who are now married and so I have three sons-in-law. And I remember one time when my kids were little, we were at a funeral and it was my uncle, and he had sons who helped carry his casket. And, you know, I was sad about the funeral, but I got in the car and I was crying and my husband’s like, you okay? And I was like. Yeah, but you have nobody to carry your casket when you die because I had girls, guess what? They grow up and get married and then you have lots of sons-in-law or daughters-in-law or whatever that goes along with that.
And I’ll be honest, it was not an easy transition. I loved my girls as my own best friends. And so when another person came into the life, into our lives, it almost felt like a competition for their affection and their time. And so yeah, there was a little bit of a struggle with how do I share my daughters with someone when I’m not very good at sharing.
I really want my children to myself, and what I found was the same thing that I was talking about with the fitness industry or any industry that we’re in customer service. The more time you spend with people, the more you realize they’re nice people. They’re awesome people. They want to be loved, and you want to be loved.
And the more time I spend with people, the more I like the bond. And there’s no sense in having a clash or an argument or disgruntled feelings because bottom line, everybody, or at least you hope and trust that your children are choosing people that are good people and that they’re kind and loving. And then because they love them, I love them.
And so again, the more time I spend with them, the more I talk to them, the more I get to know their interests and what they enjoy, then I enjoy being with them too. So it’s all about showing love. It’s all about giving them attention and time and most of the time you find out, wow, I really like these people. They’re awesome. They’re a part of my family.
Now I remember when my first daughter got married, I kind of gave an analogy of reading a novel, and there’s characters in the novel, and now all of a sudden there’s not just a few characters. There’s more characters who have joined, and that makes the story that much more interesting.
I love it. It really does, ’cause you’re adding people to it. What a great way to look at it. Yep. And your blessed sons-in-law, like oh yes, it’s so, so fun that I’m sure, that you’re willing to spend the time. And I really like how you said, if my daughter loves them, then I’m gonna love ’em too. You know what I mean? I think that makes a huge difference. I think that’s so helpful for us going into any relationship. Well, if they love them, then certainly I can find some things to love about them. I don’t have to love everything about ’em, but I can definitely find some things to love about ’em.
Absolutely. That’s awesome. Alright, yeah, it’s amazing. So is there anything else you wanna share? Any other thoughts about anything you do or anything you wanna share? Well just one other thing with the daughter-in-law, son-in-law thing is now I have grandchildren from those marriages. And that is the sweetest thing ever. You know, there are times when I’m like, who am I to decide who my daughter or son chooses when the Lord knows the fruit that’s gonna be produced from those relationships.
And I now have five grandchildren with another one on the way, and every single one of them are precious in my sight. And I just adore them and I love the time spent with them. And I am just so thankful for the union of their mom and dad. So that I get to enjoy the time, not only with mom and dad, but now more characters to the story that make it so much more fun. So I’m very thankful for the relationships there, and I just try to show ’em love by spending time with them and enjoying time with them.
Oh, that’s so beautiful and I love that you have the Lord in your life as well, that’s an important part. And you see the union and the connection and those sweet grand babies. Yeah, absolutely.
And that’s probably what I’d follow up with is what else do you want people to know? I love the Lord. I am a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. I love family. So those three: I love the Lord, I love Christ I follow, I love my family. We have a saying in our family, family is everything. Ah, and it truly is because family is gonna be with you in the hard times and in the good times.
And friends come and friends go. As much as you love friends, they are precious, precious people. But family is who will always be with you, through thick and thin. So I love being with my family, spending time with my kids and my grandkids. I love being healthy and doing exercise. Exercise to me is fun. You know, someone asked one time, who likes to exercise in here and I’m raising my hand ’cause I’m like, I love to exercise. I just love the feeling that comes from it, and while I’m doing it. So that’s me.
Well, and you make exercise so fun as well, and I love it when you throw Jesus music in there like, that lights up my heart. I’m like, yes, like any kind of music like that, I just love that you incorporate it. And you’ll say little things there that are just tender and you know, telling us little, little nuggets of love. I love just who you are and you represent you being you. You know what I mean? You don’t tiptoe around, you’re like, Hey, this is me. I love it. So Awesome. Thank you.
Alright, so what’s your favorite question or quote about love and how have you used it in your, you know, with yourself or in your relationships?
I had to think on this one, but I finally came up with first Corinthians 16:14. It says, “do everything in love.” It’s very simple. Do everything in love. The whole 13 and 14 says, “be on your guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be strong and courageous. Do everything in love.” I think all of that goes so well together with just life, isn’t it?
To stand firm in our faith, be strong and courageous, ’cause life hits hard sometimes. Yeah. But no matter what we’re doing or where we’re doing it, do it in love. And you know the saying, love wins because love is kindness. Love is treating people special. Love is making people feel important. And most of the time when you treat people with love, then it’s a win, it’s a victory.
Yeah, that makes me emotional because it is. Do everything in love. I love that so much. Hmm, something to think about. Yeah. So beautiful. I like to follow that one with John 10:10. And that says, “I have come so that you may have life and live it abundantly when we love people. Then we can live life abundantly.”
That doesn’t mean everything’s always gonna be perfect. That doesn’t mean your life is gonna be happy all the time, but I think we can have an abundant life just by loving other people. Absolutely. Oh Cheryl, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing your love insights with us today. I so appreciate you. You’re so welcome. I enjoyed it. Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Here’s to do everything in love, fuel your body, family is everything, connection and love. Have a good one y’all.
Thanks for hanging out with me today on Lovin My Daughter-in-law podcast. I hope you’re walking away with a little more connection, love, and lightness in your heart.
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Until next time, be you, love you, build connections, and have some fun.