Alicia Lansdown

The Journey Back To Your True Nature with Alicia Lansdown | Ep. 48

ByMegan North

On this week’s episode of The True North Show, I am joined by a beautiful friend of mine, Alicia Lansdown.  Alicia shares many stories of how her passion and purpose has guided her throughout her life, how the loss of her father when she was 30 had a major impact and turning point on and in her life and how she is now working with women to guide them on their health journey.  Alicia talks about the value of being in tune with yourself and most importantly the insights and guidance our bodies give us when we are able to listen and feel the messages and wisdom.

Bio:

Alicia spent most of her twenties completely unbothered by health while her dad, a bodybuilder, quietly nudged her toward it.  She wasn’t interested. But with him in her corner, she felt unstoppable.

Then he died suddenly when she was 30, and everything fell apart, not just her health, but her sense of who she was.

What followed were years of trying to put herself back together.  Chronic inflammation, mystery health issues, and 10 kilos she couldn’t shift no matter what she tried.  She travelled to Costa Rica to study raw food nutrition, still her body held on. Doing everything “right” and getting nowhere.

Until something shifted.

She began training for a bodybuilding competition, she got lean, strong, and for a moment felt like she’d finally cracked it.  But pushing that hard came at a cost she hadn’t anticipated, her mood darkened, the person chasing that stage was someone she didn’t recognise.

She never stepped on that stage.  So she stopped, stepped back, and started again.  This time without the extremes.

The confidence she’d lost when her dad died began to resurface, not by pushing harder, but through finally understanding her own body, she was strong, lean, and clear on who she was again.

That version of herself launched her first business.  That experience, backed by formal study in health science, became the foundation for True Nature Nutrition – because true nature isn’t a programme or a meal plan. It’s the version of you that’s strong, confident, and completely at home in your own skin.

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Transcript:

[00:34] Megan North: Hello and welcome to the True North Show. I’m your host Megan North, and I’d like to start by thanking the sponsors of the show: Quantum Awakening, Beth Lewis, Anne C. Clarke, and my lovely guest who has kindly supported the show and is featured in this episode.

Today I am joined by an incredible woman who I have had the pleasure of being friends with for a couple of years now, Alicia Lansdown. Alicia spent most of her twenties completely unbothered by health while her dad, a bodybuilder, quietly nudged her toward it. She wasn’t interested, but with him in her corner, she felt unstoppable.

Then he died suddenly when she was thirty, and everything fell apart. Not just her health, but her sense of who she was. What followed were years of trying to put herself back together. Chronic inflammation, mystery health issues, and ten kilos she couldn’t shift no matter what she tried. She even travelled to Costa Rica to study raw food nutrition. Still her body held on, doing everything right but getting nowhere, until something shifted.

She began training for a bodybuilding competition. She got lean, strong, and for a moment felt like she’d finally cracked it. But pushing that hard came at a cost she hadn’t anticipated. Her mood darkened. The person chasing that stage was someone she didn’t recognise. She never stepped on that stage. She stopped, stepped back, and started again, this time without the extremes.

The confidence she had lost when her dad died began to resurface, not by pushing harder, but through finally understanding her own body. She was strong, lean, and clear on who she was again. That version of herself launched her first business, and that experience, backed by formal study in health science, became the foundation for True Nature Nutrition.

Welcome to the show, Alicia. I am so thrilled that you’re here with me today.

[02:56] Alicia Lansdown: Thank you so much.

[02:59] Megan North: You’re welcome. Was it a little emotional listening to that bio and just hearing your journey read back to you?

[03:09] Alicia Lansdown: Yeah, definitely. It still brings up the emotions of that journey, really.

[03:14] Megan North: It’s interesting when someone else reads those things out and you’re listening as an audience member, isn’t it?

[03:20] Alicia Lansdown: Yeah. You know what I mean. It still brings up all of it.

[03:27] Megan North: So if you’ve ever done everything right but still felt stuck in your own body, Alicia’s story is exactly what you need to hear today. Stay with us because after the break, Alicia and I will explore what she learned and how her journey may change the way you look at your own body.

Welcome back to the True North Show. I’m here with Alicia Lansdown, and before the break we heard her remarkable journey from grief and frustration to finally feeling strong, confident, and at home in her own body.

Alicia, let’s start by diving in and understanding the circumstances around your defining moment that led you to pursue the passion and purpose you’re living right now.

[05:05] Alicia Lansdown: I really need to circle back to who my dad was in my life. I get emotional talking about this. He was really a mentor. He had his own faults, but he was a beautiful man. He was the person you could go to who would have all the answers, or who would guide you toward them.

When he passed away, very tragically, I lost a part of me. I lost it because I no longer had someone to go to. He provided a safety that I felt in my body and my nervous system, a sense that I could do and be anything and achieve anything. Without him, I was suddenly asking: who am I? Am I just somebody who follows the crowd?

Before he passed, I was a bit of a party animal, just going with the flow. But when he died, I realised I was going with the flow of a current that wasn’t my own. So I started to search for myself.

A few years after he died, I still had his words ringing in my head: you only have one life, just go for it. So I decided to do a year of travel. I was working online in marketing at the time. During that year, I started exploring my spiritual side, meditation, yoga. I quit drinking. I really did feel like I was discovering myself.

But at the same time, I was struggling with so many health issues. I’d put on a lot of weight after he died. I was eating out constantly and trying many different diets. I tried vegetarianism, then veganism. I was living in Mexico at the time, and a retreat to do a raw vegan nutrition course in Costa Rica came up. I thought: this is the answer. So I went.

After that course, I came back to Australia and Sydney pulled me straight back into the vortex. The busyness, the old patterns. I was a photographer and still doing marketing. I went back to drinking and started to lose myself again.

So I wanted to get my health back and lose the weight I’d gained. I was in New Zealand at the time, staying on a friend’s farm, and I saw a nutritionist. She had my bloods done. They came back showing critically low B vitamins, that I was eating only around 600 to 800 calories a day, that I was highly inflamed, and that I had a parasite, most likely from Mexico.

She told me I needed to eat meat again. I had lost my menstrual cycle. She put me on a full protocol of vitamins and supplements. Within about six weeks, things started clicking back into place.

But there was still more to uncover. I found out I was allergic to corn, and I had spent most of my time overseas in Mexico, which is heavily corn-based. I also suspected I had coeliac disease, and that was eventually confirmed. As soon as I stopped eating gluten, the inflammation and the weight really started to shift.

Alongside that, I was doing some strength training, but nothing structured or serious. It wasn’t until the first lockdown that I started training for a bodybuilding competition.

Strength training at that point genuinely helped my mental health. But taking it to that extreme ended up being detrimental to it. When you get really lean and you’re dealing with life stressors, if you’re not eating enough fats, you lose the hormonal support, particularly from your sex hormones, which are neuroprotective. I ended up really, really depressed.

So I stopped. Not completely, but I went: okay, what do I actually want to achieve? And it came back to something simple. I just want to feel strong and confident in my body.

[12:09] Megan North: And do you think that’s where your work with the nutritionist began to spark your deeper interest in this field? Like the realisation that this is real and I’m genuinely passionate about it?

[12:23] Alicia Lansdown: Yes. When I came back to Sydney, I had actually applied to do a nutrition degree, but I pulled out because I got busy with my marketing work. And I think there’s a thread through my story, which is about the safety my dad provided. When he was gone, providing that safety for myself was really hard. Taking risks felt impossible. I kept returning to what felt anchored and familiar.

It wasn’t until three years ago that I actually started studying health science. And it was that moment of realising: following internet trends and all the different diets out there is not the answer. The answer is understanding your own body.

I even tried carnivore for a period, but like the others, it just didn’t fit my lifestyle or my training. Being strong was more important to me than an extreme dietary experiment. And by that point, I didn’t need to lose weight.

[13:43] Megan North: Yes. And I imagine too that reconnecting with yourself and rebuilding trust in your own inner wisdom needed to be reignited. Because if your dad had still been around, you would have just asked him. And if he had said go for it, you would have gone. You had to go back inside and ask yourself: what do I actually need? What genuinely inspires me?

[14:23] Alicia Lansdown: Definitely. And I think too, I started my first business just after the first lockdown. It was a video production and photography business. Then the second lockdown hit and I wasn’t doing marketing work, so people started reaching out needing help with startups. I ended up launching two of them, and then took on more marketing clients and basically found myself running a marketing agency almost by accident.

Then those two startups ran out of funding. I was left looking at a pipeline that had disappeared. So I went back to running the photography and video production business, and that was when I really revisited the question: what do I actually want to do from here?

I had been a photographer since I was twenty-one. I could do it with my eyes closed. But I was missing purpose. I loved it, but passion without purpose wasn’t enough anymore. I had reconnected with my spirituality and really started asking: how do I want to support other people? Particularly people who have been through the same kind of experience I have, who just need to come back to basics and back to what works for their own body.

[16:46] Alicia Lansdown: Because I think we can spend so much time looking for answers outside of ourselves. What I found was that coming back to consistency and speaking the language my own body understood was what actually worked. That was exactly what the nutritionist had said to me at the time. When I was eating raw vegan, I was speaking a different language to my body, and it couldn’t absorb the nutrients from the food I was giving it.

[17:18] Megan North: Yes, and isn’t it interesting how the marketing agency work just stopped. And when we’re in that trust mode, we can start to recognise the subtle signs. That space freed you to reconnect with the nutrition piece. When we’re too busy, we simply can’t hear those signals.

[17:56] Alicia Lansdown: Exactly. I was working absolutely crazy hours and had no capacity. I also started asking myself: what lifestyle do I actually want to create? I have a little dog, Harry, and it was becoming impossible to be on shoots or at a computer all the time and still be there for him. So I thought about how I wanted to bring my heart into the world, but also how I wanted to support my own life and my own body. Rather than just playing a role in something that was sustaining me financially but not nourishing me.

[18:51] Megan North: Yes, not filling your cup. And it’s really beautiful to sit and reflect on how we got to where we are. Because sometimes we forget to do that. And it’s also valuable for you to hear your own journey back in the telling of it.

[19:18] Alicia Lansdown: Definitely. And even the journey since starting my studies has been like compound interest on a single decision. You just keep getting these reinforcements. At the beginning of last year, I read one of William White Cloud’s books and jumped on one of his courses. One of his meditations just cracked me open. I had never felt love like that, just for no reason. My external circumstances were not in a great state, but my internal world, and the love I felt and the awe for everything in the universe, it was just extraordinary.

[20:33] Megan North: So beautiful. And from a mental health and wellbeing point of view, what do you do to maintain your own wellbeing? And is there anything you do that’s a little different from the usual?

[20:58] Alicia Lansdown: Harry definitely plays a big part. On a day-to-day basis, every morning before I leave the house, I meditate. I do an energy cleanse of my environment and make sure my own energy field is protected before I go out. I read my goals out loud daily. I have affirmation statements, one of which is “I am love.” I write down what I’m grateful for. I also write down something I love about myself today more than yesterday, and I do the same for Harry.

On another level, we all have fears that surface and moments when the mind turns on us. When that happens during the day, I replace the thought with something more empowering. If something feels really sticky, I just say to myself: it doesn’t matter. And I send it love and peace, even if it involves someone I’ve had a difficult interaction with. Because I have a tendency to go into doom and gloom mode and overthink things.

So I fill my mind purposefully throughout the day. Self-help books, post-it notes everywhere, revisiting journals. Sometimes I’ll open a journal and it will fall on exactly the page I needed that day. And nature is a massive part of my mental health. Going for a walk, getting my feet in the sand, or walking to the little forest down the road and taking my shoes off and sitting among the trees.

And being able to talk to other people. A problem shared is genuinely a problem halved.

[23:55] Megan North: Yes, and when we share things, we often realise we are not alone in what we’re thinking or feeling. That moment of someone saying “I’ve experienced that too” is so powerful when we’ve been sitting in our heads thinking no one would understand.

[24:13] Alicia Lansdown: Yes, definitely. I’ve worked with psychologists throughout my life, and I now have a mentor. I cannot imagine not having one. Having someone to help guide your path and your direction, and to give you that true north, really grounds you. It keeps you asking: where am I heading, what am I focusing on? Without that, we just tend to catch all the noise.

[25:13] Megan North: And how do you know, in your body or your energy, that this is your new purpose? Is there something you feel differently?

[25:29] Alicia Lansdown: There’s a constant drive. It feels like unlimited energy.

And my health business keeps widening in terms of what I want to deliver. As I continue to heal myself in new ways, I keep unlocking small but powerful things that can help people overcome what is holding them back. Because what I realised is that my identity was so tied to my dad and the strength and safety he gave me that when he was gone, I was lost because my sense of self had been anchored in him. A lot of people do that with parents or family.

And on this journey of stepping into who I actually am, particularly in starting this business, I was terrified. Who am I to do this? One of the key things I have learned is nervous system regulation. Your body will not let you exceed your nervous system’s capacity, no matter how much you mentally convince yourself. The nervous system sets the ceiling.

That is actually why I have signed up to do somatic and breathwork teacher training in Bali this year. It just keeps expanding. And knowing I am on the right path is confirmed by the things I keep unlocking along the way, things that are already helping my clients.

The most common conversation I have with women is: I really want to do this, I want to lose the weight, get stronger, feel better. But something keeps stopping them. One woman told me she had always been a C or D student in life, in her marks, in her work, in her ambitions. What stops people is not information. It is nervous system capacity and identity. It is not enough to say you are going to be healthy. You have to actually care deeply enough about yourself to take the action.

[28:20] Megan North: Yes, and that action piece is so important. You actually have to take the step.

[28:32] Alicia Lansdown: Consistently, yes. That is the whole thing.

[28:36] Megan North: I would love to talk about the work you’re doing with women, particularly around perimenopause. Why do you think a woman’s relationship with her body changes so significantly as she moves into that season of life?

[29:02] Alicia Lansdown: I think a lot of it comes from what our generation was taught: that skinny equals healthy, and that eating less is how you lose weight. Many women still carry that mindset, and it can come from their parents as well.

As we move into perimenopause, estrogen goes all over the place and progesterone just declines. These hormones are protective. They are neuroprotective. They protect our muscles, our bones, our metabolism, and our cardiovascular system. Without them, we need to completely reframe how we think about health and how we support our bodies.

Muscle mass and strength training are the antidote, but they have to be supported with proper nutrition. The media is not giving women a healthy representation of what this season of life actually requires. And while we now have access to more information than ever, the problem is that you will always find evidence for whatever you are already looking for. If you want validation that skinny is healthy, you will find it. If you want validation that strong is healthy, you will find that too.

The mindset piece is probably the hardest part, because we have been so deeply conditioned.

[31:16] Megan North: I’m a woman in perimenopause and I think part of what shifts as we get older is that we stop giving energy to what others think we should do. We get more focused on what actually works for us. And I think the identity shift you mentioned, not just the hormonal one, plays a big role too. Women whose children are growing up, or who are looking at what comes next, are going through something very similar to what you experienced at thirty. Everything changes at once.

[32:32] Alicia Lansdown: Yes. And some women just reach a point of giving up, thinking: this is just my body now. They have tried everything and nothing has worked. But what I find is that women who come out the other side of this, whether they’ve had children and now have time and space to focus on themselves again, or whether they have simply reached a point of deciding they are worth the effort, those women can absolutely transform how they feel and how they function.

[33:29] Megan North: So what are the most common things women come to you to work on?

[33:29] Alicia Lansdown: Mainly weight loss, getting lean, and building muscle. And then we start working on values and identity alongside that. The feedback I get from that piece consistently is: “my goodness, I feel amazing,” even before the physical changes are fully visible. And that feeling fuels everything else. When you feel good, you take action. When you feel low, you sit on the couch. It really is that connected.

[34:18] Megan North: And how does the nutrition side work practically? Do you use a food diary?

[34:31] Alicia Lansdown: Yes. I start with an intake form and a food diary, usually for one to two weeks. Then I put together a meal plan based on what they are already eating, adjusting rather than completely overhauling where possible.

Most of the time, women are eating too many energy-dense foods, particularly carbohydrates and fats, relative to protein. So it is about rebalancing, having more carbohydrates on training days and more fats on rest days to support fat metabolism. If insulin is elevated from carbohydrate intake, the body simply cannot break down fat. So the timing and composition of meals really matters.

The first month is the most intensive. After that it becomes about accountability and adjustments. I have clients messaging me on weekends asking: can I have this? What can I order from this menu? I didn’t train today, is this okay? And I love that, because what it shows me is that it is becoming woven into their lives. It is not a temporary program. It is becoming who they are.

[37:16] Megan North: Yes, and that is probably the first time many of those women have made a truly conscious choice about what they eat. Not just eating what they feel like, but actually understanding the food and making a decision.

[37:47] Alicia Lansdown: Exactly. And I am not saying don’t eat pizza or chocolate. I eat all of those things. It is just about knowing where they fit.

[38:04] Megan North: So for someone who is just starting to explore their passion and purpose, what is the one piece of advice you would give?

[38:35] Alicia Lansdown: Look back on your life and find one significant challenge that you have overcome, something that was genuinely difficult and that improved your life once you came through it. Because that is where purpose often lives.

When you find that thing, you can be almost certain that other people are either going through it, have been through it, or will go through it. We can think we are alone in our experience, but we rarely are. Once you find it, ask yourself: what skillset could I develop to help others with this? That is the thread worth following.

[39:42] Megan North: Yes, and I love what you said earlier about constantly learning and up-levelling yourself. As someone who works with others, I think we owe it to our clients to keep growing. I have three coaches right now because I am rebuilding my coaching program and I want it to be excellent, but that means I have to keep developing too.

[40:20] Alicia Lansdown: Absolutely. And with the purpose piece, I remember at the time I was researching health far more than I was researching photography or video skills. That was where my attention was naturally going. That is a very reliable signal.

I have a friend who loves Lululemon more than anyone I know. She knows their fabrics and their products better than most of their staff. And she is bored in her current job. I told her: write them a letter, tell them how passionate you are. It does not have to be deep transformational work or saving the world. It can simply be something you genuinely love.

[41:20] Megan North: Yes, and it doesn’t have to be all or nothing either. You have been building your nutrition business while still running your photography and production work. Some people can draw a hard line and quit, but most people need to build alongside what already exists. And sometimes what feels like your purpose turns out to be a passion, and there is an important difference.

[42:15] Alicia Lansdown: Definitely. I almost sold the video and photography business, then thought better of it because I still needed that financial base while the nutrition business develops. And I still love the work, I just want to nurture it rather than force it.

What has been different about building True Nature Nutrition is that for the first time in my life I am not trying to make it happen overnight. I am letting it unfold. Because it is my purpose, the timing does not matter. Everything I need keeps presenting itself at the right time.

[43:17] Megan North: Yes, I love that so much. If it is your purpose, everything will present itself when it is meant to. That really landed.

[43:37] Alicia Lansdown: I just got chills when you said that.

[43:38] Megan North: So did I.

So in the next twelve months, what is coming for you? What is evolving?

[44:07] Alicia Lansdown: My purpose is definitely continuing to evolve. I have always believed that anyone can do anything in life. I came from a family that was not well off and the odds have been against me in many ways, but I have always found a way to do what I wanted to do.

So I am writing a book. I have post-it notes all over my mirror with everything I am pulling together. I have also just started mental skills training, because I want to work with young people. I believe so many people get held back by the dynamics of where they come from and what they have been told is possible for them. I want to help inspire people that it does not matter where you have come from. You can be anyone and achieve anything.

[45:14] Megan North: I love that. And I love that you still have that element of flow in it. Not a rigid plan, but an openness to what comes in if it feels right.

[45:33] Alicia Lansdown: Definitely. If we are too fixed, we miss the opportunities that are quietly knocking.

[45:35] Megan North: And for someone listening who feels a connection to what you have shared today, how do they find you and take a next step?

[45:56] Alicia Lansdown: They can find me on Instagram, or if they are interested in working with me, they can head to my website. There is a link to apply to work together. It is not a sales conversation. It is just a chat to see if we are a good fit. Sometimes people just need a couple of pointers and do not need three months of coaching. Either way, reach out on Instagram or fill out the application form on the website.

[46:33] Megan North: Wonderful. And is there one health tip you would leave people with today?

[47:00] Alicia Lansdown: My number one health tip, particularly for women, is to increase your protein intake. Aim for 1.6 to 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.

Protein is not only for building muscle. It is used to create hormones, repair DNA, and produce the enzymes that break down your food. If you are not getting enough of it, your body will take what it needs from your muscle tissue. For women, particularly those navigating perimenopause, that is a cycle that compounds quickly and silently.

Alongside that, from the age of thirty, start building muscle and keep going. Strength training, supported by proper nutrition, is the most powerful tool we have for managing the hormonal and metabolic changes that come with this season of life. And that applies to men too. They go through their own version of hormonal change. Although they also have to navigate their partner’s menopause, which I imagine is its own experience.

[48:22] Megan North: And they go through their wife or partner’s menopause as well.

[48:27] Alicia Lansdown: Exactly. But strength training, I genuinely believe, is the gold standard for managing the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. The hot flushes, the mood shifts, the vasomotor symptoms. It addresses all of it, and it does so in a way that also builds long-term resilience.

[49:05] Megan North: I can’t believe we only have a couple of minutes left. So much information. I love it. So, the question I ask all of my guests to close our conversation, slightly tweaked: what is one lesson or truth that you have learned in the last twelve months that you are truly grateful for?

[49:20] Alicia Lansdown: To ask for support and help. You do not have to do it alone.

I have always been fiercely independent. The kind of person who carries fridges upstairs rather than asking someone to help. But in all areas of life, speaking to people about what you are going through and allowing yourself to receive support, that has been one of the most important things I have learned.

[49:41] Megan North: And is that also something you wish you had known much earlier in life?

[49:49] Alicia Lansdown: Oh, definitely. It is allowing yourself to receive. That is the real shift. Not just asking, but genuinely allowing.

[50:15] Megan North: Yes, that sense of community and having your inner circle, knowing who you can lean on and who will show up for you, feels like something we are all finding our way back to.

[50:37] Alicia Lansdown: Absolutely, yes.

[50:41] Megan North: I love that. Thank you. What a beautiful way to finish our conversation. And thank you for just being so beautifully yourself and for sharing what you have today. I’ve known you for a few years and I always learn something new when I sit down with you like this. I have no doubt everyone watching and listening will have learned a lot too.

[51:21] Alicia Lansdown: Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share.

[51:25] Megan North: You’re welcome. And I’d also like to thank all of my amazing audience, supporters, and sponsors. I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week and I look forward to seeing you all again next time. Thank you again, Alicia.

[51:40] Alicia Lansdown: Thank you.

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