Latest / Nourished Fertility / My Goal Was to Feel VIBRANT: Here's the 10 Health Changes I Made in 2025
Transcript
- 0:00Well, welcome back to the Nourishing Women Podcast, your go-to podcast to
- 0:03get your peer back and get pregnant.
- 0:05I'm your host, Victoria Myers, peer recovery specialist, fertility, dietician,
- 0:10and owner of the virtual coaching practice, nourishing Minds Nutrition.
- 0:14Where we work together to restore your fertility.
- 0:18Now, today's episode is a super special one 'cause it's extremely personal.
- 0:22Like this is all about me and my health changes.
- 0:25And if you're in the midst of pure recovery, my suggestion to you is to
- 0:30listen to this episode with just complete inspiration, not actually implementing.
- 0:35I mean, there's gonna be areas of this you can implement for sure,
- 0:38but just knowing kind of like.
- 0:39What's ahead for you?
- 0:40Get excited because this is ultimately about living your
- 0:43healthiest best life and with a regular, consistent auditory period.
- 0:49Not only are you restoring your fertility, but you're making sure that you are a
- 0:53truly healthy person from the inside out.
- 0:56And then you can kind of.
- 0:58Go about life experimenting and exploring other areas of your health
- 1:01and get more intentional and specific.
- 1:03But honestly, something I say to my clients all the time is
- 1:07you kind of have to earn the privilege of doing that, right?
- 1:09By making sure your body is truly healthy enough by having
- 1:12this regular consistent period.
- 1:15So again.
- 1:16If you're impaired recovery, let this episode be your inspiration to everyone
- 1:21else who's listening, who does have a regular obligatory period, whose
- 1:24relationship with food is healed, who wants to understand better, like
- 1:28how do you then go about health?
- 1:30When you are trying to have a healthy relationship with food, but actually
- 1:33care about what you put put in your body, and you are starting to age and
- 1:37feel the difference and need to be a little bit more specific, I feel you.
- 1:40That's a lot of what this episode was about.
- 1:43So to re rewind and kind of explain this episode.
- 1:47My goal for 2025 was to feel vibrant, and I'm gonna explain specifically
- 1:51why just here in a second.
- 1:53And there are 10 very specific health changes I made over the year of 2025.
- 1:59It took me an entire year to implement all of this.
- 2:02Now it wasn't like I even set out to say, Hey, 2025, I'm gonna do these exact
- 2:05changes, but they each kind of happened in inspired action after the next one.
- 2:11And I'm gonna go through each of those changes.
- 2:14In this episode so that you understand kind of what wellness
- 2:18without obsession can look like and what a healthy relationship with
- 2:22food, but truly caring about your health and wellbeing can can be.
- 2:26And you know, I wanna say about six months ago I recorded an episode of
- 2:30what Life After Period Recovery can look like Wellness, but without obsession or
- 2:34trademark philosophy here on the podcast.
- 2:36And I shared in that episode.
- 2:38That I've made numerous changes this specific year to my health habits, right?
- 2:41This is what this episode is all about.
- 2:43So this is me like digging in exactly what I did and what, why I truly feel like a
- 2:49different person, or rather back to my old self to rewind and to give backstory.
- 2:55I got my period back in 2015 after losing it in 2014 after coming off the pill.
- 3:01So the entire decade that I struggled with disordered eating, I was on birth control.
- 3:06So personally for me, I'll never know if I would've had a natural period on my own.
- 3:10But what I can say is that when I came off the pill shortly after getting married,
- 3:15it was after my honeymoon, I lost my period, like went missing for 14 months.
- 3:20Became obsessed and on a mission to figure out the missing links and why.
- 3:25Uh, there was such a connecting dots in my mind of like, okay, there's
- 3:27something going on with my disordered eating, my period loss, but also
- 3:31why, you know, my nervous system was shot and why I was struggling with
- 3:35my metabolism and all these things.
- 3:36Again, I was able to connect the dots and obviously that's why this practice
- 3:39exists all, all these years later.
- 3:42And what I will say though, go.
- 3:44Going back to 2015, once I got my period back, is for years.
- 3:48Honestly, for years I felt fantastic just living a life with a natural monthly
- 3:54period with regular ish exercise and a diet free from restrictions like that.
- 3:59Felt like enough to feel great, but then life happened.
- 4:04I had my first daughter in 2019.
- 4:07And then my second daughter in 2023, and each year that passed as a mom.
- 4:12I felt that energy of like feeling great, starting to slip away.
- 4:18Totally normal to be expected is what I told myself for a while.
- 4:21Like what Mom doesn't?
- 4:22Not feel a hundred percent.
- 4:23You know, like my sleep was never great anymore.
- 4:25But what I think I didn't take into account was that I was getting
- 4:29older and that in the postpartum.
- 4:31And now as a mid thirties year old woman, I'm 36 years old recording this,
- 4:36that my needs were changing, you know?
- 4:39To be perfectly honest, I started to feel like constantly sluggish, tired, yet
- 4:44wired, unable to concentrate on my work.
- 4:47My digestion started to take its toll, especially after having
- 4:51multiple stomach bugs in a row.
- 4:53You know, from having kids in daycare.
- 4:55You kind of catch everything, and I just.
- 4:57Felt too, this was a big one for me.
- 4:59I felt myself wanting to have the girls just like watch TV all weekend
- 5:03so that I could relax constantly and I just, I hate that so much.
- 5:06That's not how I wanna approach motherhood at all.
- 5:09And I could just tell that I did not feel like myself at the same time.
- 5:15At the end of last year, I went all in on my business and I hired a team of
- 5:20business mentors to help me transform my business from the inside out.
- 5:24On a personal level, I understood that that meant like I needed to
- 5:27better understand what personal habits on a daily basis were hindering me
- 5:31from my business goals and what.
- 5:34I needed to focus on more to help me reach these goals.
- 5:37So I had like both these personal reasons me not feeling great, me
- 5:41starting to feel worse and worse as the years went on as a mom.
- 5:44Me noticing kind of my energy and ability to be present and engaged
- 5:47with my kids was, was dwindling, but also these business goals, right?
- 5:51Where I was kind of noticing the same thing, but just in a. Professional way
- 5:55of where like I just, my energy, my focus and my ability to kind of chase the things
- 5:59I wanted was not the same anymore and it was getting worse and worse every year.
- 6:03So with both personal and business goals in mind, I set out to make sure 2025.
- 6:10Was the year I became the kind of person I knew deep down I was capable
- 6:14of being a successful business owner, an engaged and present mom, an active
- 6:19woman who was regulated and cared for.
- 6:22And yes, I truly believe we can have it all if we are willing to work
- 6:27hard and chase our dreams for it.
- 6:30So with all of that background story shared.
- 6:33Here are the specific 10 changes, the 10 health habits I made in 2025 that
- 6:39truly have me at the end of this year thinking, wow, like I really did.
- 6:44Completely changed my life.
- 6:45That sounds wild to say out loud for an episode for many people to listen
- 6:49to, but it is a hundred percent true.
- 6:51Like I feel like myself again.
- 6:53I feel honestly even better than I did when I was 22 years old.
- 6:57So here's what I did.
- 6:59Health habit number one, it all started.
- 7:02In the beginning of 2025 with a hair tissue mineral analysis.
- 7:07I ordered A-H-T-M-A all myself as we had added them into our practice
- 7:12a few months prior in fall 2024.
- 7:14And I wanted to understand the experience better for myself, but I had no idea
- 7:20how much this would be the catalyst for every other change I made this year.
- 7:24So I. Added in a lot more based off of my test results and my body's
- 7:29unique needs from the test results.
- 7:30A lot more sodium and potassium and magnesium into my diet
- 7:34through supplementation, through mineral mocktails, and just
- 7:37through like my daily food intake.
- 7:39And I felt an immediate difference in my energy levels.
- 7:45I found myself wanting after years of not to also because I had.
- 7:49So much more energy from the HCMA and implementing the protocol based
- 7:53off of my results, I felt myself wanting to move my body more again.
- 7:58So the first health habit change was ordering a hair tissue mineral
- 8:02analysis and implementing the protocol, and I will even say just like daily
- 8:07mineral mocktails, life changing.
- 8:09Couldn't recommend them enough.
- 8:10Okay, so then health habit number two was consistent.
- 8:14Strength training because I had more energy from consistent mineral
- 8:18mocktails in my supplement and diet protocol from my HTMA results.
- 8:24I was able to go from about two times a week of strength training to consistently
- 8:28every week going about four times a week.
- 8:31I'm pretty consistent with that across the board.
- 8:34Personally, I go to, um, a class called Burn Bootcamp.
- 8:38I fell in love with it actually a few years ago, but again, it was only going
- 8:41a couple times a week at that time.
- 8:44And I love it for so many reasons.
- 8:46If you're in the southeast and you have the period, 'cause
- 8:49it is a very intense exercise.
- 8:50I wouldn't recommend it until after period recovery.
- 8:53Um, I like couldn't recommend it enough though.
- 8:55Like go give it a try.
- 8:56It is so fun.
- 8:58It is such a different approach to exercise.
- 9:00I love the heavy weightlifting component of it, the progressive
- 9:04overload focus, which means you're consistently over time adding.
- 9:08Adding like to the amount of that you're weightlifting.
- 9:11So getting heavier and heavier, heavier over time.
- 9:14I love their personal trainers who do such a great job of compassionately encouraging
- 9:19you to truly lift as heavy as you can.
- 9:22I was not someone, I mean, I weight lifted in my twenties a little bit,
- 9:25but I can't say that I've had like years of experience with it prior.
- 9:28So learning how to lift a failure was like a new skill for me to learn.
- 9:32And I don't think without someone there being like, Victoria,
- 9:35you can do more than this.
- 9:37I don't know that I would've pushed myself to that degree.
- 9:40I also love the music, the community, like I love it.
- 9:43So also, of course, as you can tell, like it was easier to be
- 9:47consistent 'cause I found something that I just genuinely loved.
- 9:50And again, I had more energy, which allowed for that too.
- 9:52And as I started to be more consistent in going more often,
- 9:57I started to feel the difference.
- 10:00I think the thing that I feel the most difference with,
- 10:02with consistent exercises.
- 10:04Consistent string training specifically is actually my mental health, my
- 10:09energy levels, my ability to focus in the morning after going to class.
- 10:13Like I love nothing more than having my morning with my girls.
- 10:16My husband takes them to school.
- 10:18I go do my burn bootcamp, I come back at Justin ready, and then I get to work and
- 10:21I am just so focused and so energized and so excited, and that I just feel
- 10:25such a difference in my mental health.
- 10:27I feel like it carries.
- 10:28Through with me all day after going to a burn bootcamp class or any,
- 10:33you know, exercise for you, whatever that is that you personally enjoy.
- 10:37And I will also say I felt my desire to move my body more
- 10:42because I just felt so good.
- 10:43I also had forgotten what it feels like to feel strong again.
- 10:47Like, gosh, it feels so good to like easily be able to do a pushup and to do
- 10:51squats and dead lifts with heavy weights.
- 10:53Like I just forgot how good that feels, and because I had more energy from my
- 10:59mineral protocol for my HTMA results and my consistent strength training.
- 11:03Then number three, health habit number three came into play.
- 11:06Which was much more walking this year in 2025, I felt so incredible
- 11:13that I started walking more.
- 11:15Almost every afternoon I go for a 20 minute naked, no noise walk, which for
- 11:21reference, if you have a, listened to the nervous system regulation episode, that
- 11:25just means like naked with no sunglasses.
- 11:27I'm trying to actually get sun exposure and no noise obviously
- 11:30implies no audio books, no podcasts.
- 11:33I just wanna basically like listen to the noise of.
- 11:36Noise of nature.
- 11:37Um, and I find that very regulating.
- 11:39Um, I love it as a way to unplug from work.
- 11:42It's kind of a good way for me personally to just take a quick break from work
- 11:45and to recenter my mind, to regulate my nervous system, but because also
- 11:50I just want to move my body more.
- 11:51I have so much energy now that it like simply fuels good to move more.
- 11:55I also, this past summer, got a walking treadmill and I do that for like 30 to
- 12:0060 minutes, just a few times a week.
- 12:02I would love to eventually do it daily, but.
- 12:04It doesn't feel like a habit yet that I'm like super, super focused on in that way.
- 12:08I like it just a few times a week right now.
- 12:10I love how clear I do feel though when I'm walking and working and my ability to
- 12:15concentrate is next level when I do it.
- 12:17And also my mood improves too.
- 12:19So can you kind of see the thing with all these things is like every single one
- 12:22of them I feel like improves my mental health, my energy, my mood, my ability
- 12:26to focus and concentrate, my ability to be with my girls at the end of the day.
- 12:29Like it's just.
- 12:30Every single health habit I feel like positively impacted, like the
- 12:33overarching big goals I had for 2025.
- 12:38Speaking of walking too, a few months ago I actually added in a weighted vest.
- 12:42I think I have a 12 pound weighted vest and only just once or twice a week.
- 12:47I used it for my longer walks, and I love how this feels too.
- 12:49It's much more like a workout, obviously nothing near as intense as my body.
- 12:54Sorry, my.
- 12:54Burn bootcamp workouts, but I love how it feels, just like a kind of
- 12:59a steady state cardio exercise.
- 13:01So that feels really good too.
- 13:02And again, I always come back with more energy, a more positive mood.
- 13:06I specifically love doing longer weighted vest walks in the weekends,
- 13:12like before, like I head into like parenting for the whole day.
- 13:15It just makes me very centered and grounded in that.
- 13:18Okay.
- 13:18So then health habit number four, because of, again, one, two, and three.
- 13:23I started being more intentional and adding more protein
- 13:26and fiber into my diet.
- 13:28Now, because I was strength training and walking more, I knew I needed
- 13:32to be more intent, intentional about eating more protein.
- 13:35So I aim for around 30 grams of protein at each meal and around 15 grams of
- 13:40protein at each snack, shooting for a very, very approximate 125 grams a day.
- 13:47Now I'm a dietician.
- 13:48I hate to say this, but like it's pretty easy for me to count without
- 13:51having to like really do it.
- 13:53So I've never tracked, I've never gotten back into any of those things
- 13:55since my disordered eating days.
- 13:57That just for me personally, wouldn't be a healthy thing to get back into.
- 14:00So I just kind of know how much food, you know, how much protein, for example, is
- 14:04in certain foods and I just approximately kinda calculate that and really
- 14:07don't count anything other than that.
- 14:09And my protein, my protein and my fiber.
- 14:11The only things I really think thoughtfully of everything else.
- 14:16I, I don't worry about, and again, that's due to my disordered eating past.
- 14:20I don't like being ex like super, super specific about calories,
- 14:24macros, anything like that.
- 14:25That doesn't work for me and it doesn't work for most of my clients.
- 14:28So going back to more protein and fiber.
- 14:32Again, the changes were dramatic.
- 14:34I felt like with each health habit I added in, I could just feel
- 14:36such a difference with each one.
- 14:39Pretty quickly, after adding in more protein to my diet,
- 14:41I was able to lift heavier.
- 14:43I also felt more full and satisfied after mealtime and noticed my ability
- 14:47to concentrate as a result improved.
- 14:50I also added in more fiber, specifically around the time I took my GI mat.
- 14:55Test, which I'll talk more about in the seventh habit.
- 14:58But again, notice such a difference in my energy, my, my mood.
- 15:01Also my daily bowel movements got really like even better, um, by intentionally
- 15:07aiming for around 25 grams a day.
- 15:10And again, I'll get into this more specifically for the seventh habit when I
- 15:13talk about taking this stool sample test.
- 15:15But I just kind of noticed I was avoiding super high fiber.
- 15:19Uh, fruits and vegetables because my digestion was so shot from
- 15:23all the multiple stomach bugs.
- 15:25But now that it's better because of the protocol I followed, I can very
- 15:28easily now eat higher fiber foods.
- 15:30Like I was avoiding chia seeds and I was avoiding, um, my Mary's gone crackers,
- 15:35flax seed crackers that I love so much.
- 15:37I was avoiding apples and sweet potatoes and avocado and all, all these things
- 15:40are like a daily part of my diet.
- 15:43Okay, up next, this is a big one.
- 15:47Health habit number five is that I, I feel so weird sharing this one, but it's true.
- 15:53I basically stopped drinking alcohol.
- 15:56I can't believe I'm saying that.
- 15:58It feels so wild to share that because I, I guess I'm sober curious now.
- 16:04You've been told you need to gain weight, stop exercising or do IVF
- 16:09to get pregnant with no period.
- 16:11What if I told you that's not actually true?
- 16:15You're tracking your food, working out, trying everything to be healthy,
- 16:18but your period is still missing and now pregnancy, it feels impossible.
- 16:24I know exactly how that feels because I've helped hundreds of women get their
- 16:29peered back and get pregnant naturally.
- 16:32Inside my free training, I'm walking you through the exact five step
- 16:35method that's helped women like Lex.
- 16:37Lauren and Stephanie restored their fertility in 90 days or less.
- 16:42Without extreme weight gain or giving up on movement, you'll learn what's
- 16:47really causing your missing period.
- 16:49Why food freedom is essential for fertility and the customized approach
- 16:53that actually works even if you've tried.
- 16:55Everything.
- 16:56If your dream is to see two pink clients and hold a baby in your arms,
- 17:00this training, it's your first step.
- 17:02Click the link in the show notes to watch the free training.
- 17:05It's time to restore your period, your fertility, and your hope.
- 17:09Now let's get back to today's episode.
- 17:11Like, here's the thing with me.
- 17:13I don't do well with extremes or strict rules, and.
- 17:18I don't have an addiction problem to alcohol, so I also do have
- 17:22the privilege here of not having to be strict with this, right?
- 17:25I wanna be really thoughtful about that.
- 17:27But right now.
- 17:28Over the past year, this truly took me an entire year to make these changes.
- 17:33I only really drink at special occasions, and that feels so good.
- 17:38Maybe eventually I'll stop drinking altogether, or maybe I'll just stay
- 17:41right here because this feels great.
- 17:43This change started primarily after consistently noticing
- 17:47myself on the weekends, not being the kind of mom I wanted to be.
- 17:50And in 2024 is when I had both girls go into full-time childcare.
- 17:56And since I now have the afternoons, evenings, and weekends as my primary
- 17:59time with them, I was not having what was happening, which was like
- 18:04even one glass of wine would make me a less engaged mom and like
- 18:08that's just a non-negotiable for me.
- 18:09I'm not wasting the precious time that I have with my girls and
- 18:12being, not being the kind of mom I wanna be for a freaking glass of
- 18:15wine like Uhuh doesn't work for me.
- 18:18I also noticed too that over time that the casual drinking I
- 18:21was doing on the weekends, like.
- 18:23Anywhere from, I'd say like one to three drinks Friday, Saturday, and
- 18:27sometimes Sunday would then lead to Mondays being so difficult to concentrate
- 18:31on work or want to change my goals.
- 18:33And as you can tell, it was like a big year of personal and professional changes.
- 18:37So that wasn't working for me anymore either.
- 18:40So this change was extremely gradual for me.
- 18:43It just started off by challenging myself to not grab.
- 18:46I drank the moment.
- 18:47It was 5:00 PM on a Friday, and I just realized over time that
- 18:50it was just, it was just a habit.
- 18:52It wasn't something I actually wanted.
- 18:54It was just something I had habitually done.
- 18:56If I'm being really, really honest with you guys, I've been drinking
- 19:00alcohol since I was around 15, 16 years old, pretty consistently, and.
- 19:05Luckily I got the binge drinking out of my system pretty early in life because of
- 19:10that, but I still just habitually drink and also a lot of people around me drink.
- 19:14So it just felt like something I was doing too because of people pleasing because
- 19:18it felt like habitual, because it felt like that's just what everyone else does.
- 19:21And I just started to be like, what do I actually want?
- 19:25So this eventually led to me not only saying no to like
- 19:29that casual 5:00 PM drink.
- 19:30Moment.
- 19:31It turned five on a Friday.
- 19:32But then it led to me saying no when we were out with friends, which I will say
- 19:36I'm so lucky to have friends that never judged, that they're also all, all of
- 19:40us are kind of sober, curious together.
- 19:42Um, we're all kind of drinking less.
- 19:43And that's super nice to have a friend group that's very respectful
- 19:47and also on that journey with me.
- 19:48And then that eventually led to saying no when I was in
- 19:51social gatherings with family.
- 19:53And then that led to eventually saying no to alcohol on nice
- 19:57dinners and date nights out.
- 19:59But here's the thing, like.
- 20:00Again, I don't do well with extremes, so I'm still drinking.
- 20:04It's probably like once a month right now.
- 20:06And for now that feels like the sweet spot.
- 20:08For example, the week that I'm recording this, I'm going to
- 20:11Charleston on Friday for my husband's company's like annual Christmas party.
- 20:16It is a wild an event we're it's saloon themed.
- 20:20Okay?
- 20:20Like we are, we are gonna have fun at that.
- 20:22We're gonna drink and have a good time.
- 20:24And I've got my element teas and I've got these like.
- 20:28Pills that help with hangovers.
- 20:29And I've got my patches, I have things to help.
- 20:32But again, it's just, it's nice 'cause it's like, I know it's a super special
- 20:35occasion, so I'm gonna have fun and then I'm also probably not gonna
- 20:38drink for like a month after that.
- 20:40So that's where I'm at with alcohol currently.
- 20:44Okay.
- 20:44Number six.
- 20:46The health habit I added in in 2025 is actually nighttime snacks for
- 20:51blood sugar regulation through sleep.
- 20:53This one is, especially for my ha girlies out there, I think y'all
- 20:56will appreciate this, but I feel like when it comes to the conversation
- 21:01of blood sugar regulation, we.
- 21:02Usually assume less food.
- 21:04But for me, one thing I started to notice is that I sleep more consistently
- 21:09and through the night better when I have a really big nighttime snack,
- 21:13especially given that I've started eating dinner earlier and earlier to
- 21:17make it work for my girls who come home from school and they are ravenous.
- 21:21So we're eating dinner at like 5:00 PM now.
- 21:23So my favorite nighttime snack.
- 21:25Currently is an apple with peanut butter and simple meals, cookies.
- 21:28I'm typically aiming for something sweet to satisfy my sweet tooth, but also
- 21:32something with fiber and or protein.
- 21:34And in 2026, I am personally interested in a continuous glucose monitor.
- 21:40I wanna see if I can get even more specific with this
- 21:42because I do still wake up.
- 21:44Once a night and I'm super curious if a dip in my blood sugar is the
- 21:48culprit there, but overall up sleeping through the night so much better.
- 21:51And also, and I do think this is circadian rhythm support, which I'll talk about
- 21:55soon, is playing a role here too, but I'm, I'm falling asleep, much easier.
- 22:00So that's happened.
- 22:01Number six.
- 22:01Okay, number seven, which I've already kind of alluded to is I did a GI map,
- 22:06stool sample testing, and a protocol after numerous stomach bugs in a row.
- 22:12Thanks to the girls being in daycare, I could not get my digestion back
- 22:16to my typical, which is well-formed.
- 22:18Daily bowel movements, minimal bloating, no indigestion whatsoever.
- 22:23So I had my functional lab.
- 22:25Expert at the practice complete a GI Map stool sample for me, and I followed my
- 22:29custom protocol based off of the results for eight weeks and got my regular
- 22:34digestion back, literally no issues again.
- 22:36It feels so amazing to be able to say that.
- 22:39And as my digestion got back to normal, this is again, when I started to eat
- 22:43more fiber, it was able to tolerate the extra fiber at this point, which
- 22:47even further improved my digestion.
- 22:50Helped with fullness and satiety as well, and I think is helping with blood
- 22:54sugar support in addition to that.
- 22:56Okay.
- 22:57Health habit number eight, that all kind of, they're all working together
- 23:01is that I then started to work more intentionally on my morning routine and
- 23:05specifically added in morning sunlight, a bigger breakfast in addition to
- 23:10what I was already doing, which was journaling and reading every morning.
- 23:15So.
- 23:16With doing so much research and trainings this past year on fertility support,
- 23:20it really did have me thinking about my own nervous system and circadian
- 23:24rhythm, and because it's so important to me that I practice what I preach,
- 23:28that I implemented every single thing that I learned to teach my clients.
- 23:33So I was already someone who would journal and read every single morning.
- 23:37I also like to visualize kind of.
- 23:38The day ahead of me, or if there's something big I'm
- 23:41working on or a big goal.
- 23:42I like to like sit and visualize it as I'm sipping my coffee, but
- 23:46I add it to my morning routine, more intentional morning sunlight.
- 23:51A much bigger breakfast and red light only in the morning since I do wake up
- 23:56at five 30 and the sun isn't out yet.
- 23:59Now the next thing I need to do my morning routine is honestly work on controlling
- 24:03my anxiety during the chaos of getting the girls ready for school each morning.
- 24:06That is.
- 24:07Like, wow, 45 minutes of my life.
- 24:10But I will say the about an hour I have to myself beforehand, it helps so much.
- 24:15But obviously the work here continues.
- 24:18I feel like I do a lot of work to like regulate myself and
- 24:20then I get very dysregulated.
- 24:23Um, and again, I will continue working on that in 2026.
- 24:26Okay.
- 24:27Two more health habits to discuss.
- 24:30Health Habit number nine is circadian rhythm focus.
- 24:34I'd recommend listening to the last two episodes on the show to learn
- 24:37more about the importance of this.
- 24:40But what I can say, and this kind of alludes to health habit
- 24:43number A, where saying, Hey, I was learning so much about how to
- 24:47better support my clients and I was.
- 24:48So much trainings to continue just to learn everything I could about fertility,
- 24:53nutrition support, um, is that I started to be a lot more intentional about
- 24:57supporting my own circadian rhythm.
- 24:59And what I've noticed is that I can fall asleep so much more quickly now, and while
- 25:04I am so waking up once a night, but it's so much less than I was before, which was.
- 25:09A scary, like every two hours I was waking up.
- 25:12So the changes I made here was red light in the early morning and evening,
- 25:17because again, I'm, I'm up before the sun and then the sun obviously goes down.
- 25:21So I wanna implement kind of no blue light during that timeframe.
- 25:25No phone because of that.
- 25:26Before 8:00 AM or after 8:00 PM no screens one hour before bedtime.
- 25:31If I watch TV before bed, I. Always struggle to fall asleep.
- 25:35So while there are occasional times where I do still watch TV before
- 25:39bed, I usually pay the price for it.
- 25:41So I am much more intentional about reading before B Bed.
- 25:44I feel like reading helps me sleep so much better and I also
- 25:48like love reading right now.
- 25:49I obviously love my like fantasy books, so that's an easy one for me.
- 25:54And then also just prioritizing morning and afternoon sun exposure.
- 25:58Um, also a kind of a newer one after listening to Jillian on the podcast
- 26:03was not sleeping in on the weekends Previously, Nick and I would like take
- 26:08turns, like I would get to sleep in until eight, nine p 9:00 AM on Saturdays, and
- 26:12then he would do the same on Sundays, and we would take turns sleeping in.
- 26:15I've honestly stopped doing that because what I notice is I actually feel more
- 26:19sleepy when I sleep into that degree.
- 26:21So because I wake up around.
- 26:23Five 30 on the weekends.
- 26:24I'm now trying to wake up around, sorry, five 30 on the weekdays.
- 26:27I now try to wake up around six 30 on the weekends to keep it within
- 26:30an hour or so of each other to better support my circadian rhythm.
- 26:35Okay, now number.
- 26:3710 health habit number 10.
- 26:38And this one's just kind of like an overarching one.
- 26:40It's just more focus on nervous system regulation.
- 26:45So what I mean by that is I just have been much more intentional throughout
- 26:48my day, my week, my months, to really be thoughtful about intentionally
- 26:53having nervous system regulation.
- 26:56In my day, in my life.
- 26:57So that means work breaks, just sitting outside, getting that sun exposure or
- 27:01going for walks, actual lunch breaks.
- 27:03Before I would just always eat through lunch.
- 27:05I know that's a horrible habit, but just being honest with you.
- 27:09Um, going to Sauna House, if you ever follow me on Instagram, I
- 27:13reference Sauna House quite a bit.
- 27:14It's, uh, here in Greenville, South Carolina.
- 27:16It's, um, you, it's like a two hour.
- 27:19You, you go for two hours at a time and you alternate between going to
- 27:22a sauna and then in a cold plunge.
- 27:25I love it so much.
- 27:26I always feel like, again, a present engaged mom afterwards.
- 27:29I usually go on Friday afternoons, like before I go into a weekend of
- 27:34parenting, so that's been really lovely.
- 27:36I have a membership, so that means I go twice a month.
- 27:39Reading every night.
- 27:40I definitely consider part of my nervous system and circadian rhythm support,
- 27:43something that's just like brings out the inner child in me, makes me so happy.
- 27:48Therapy, I talked about this in the nervous system regulation episode, but
- 27:51therapy has been like a non-negotiable for me, for my nervous system and just
- 27:55helping me recognize the patterns of what I do and how I respond to certain
- 27:59challenges or obstacles in my life.
- 28:01How I. Spawned emotionally, and it just has helped me better understand myself.
- 28:05And I feel like as a result, I'm more regulated because I understand
- 28:09how to deal with what's happening inside, if that makes sense.
- 28:12So while these changes may seem like a lot, the reality is with all of these, I
- 28:16spent an entire year slowly, intentionally with consistency, adding each habit
- 28:22into my daily routine, both with the nervous system regulation, techniques
- 28:25of health, habit number 10, but also every single one of these I've shared.
- 28:29Throughout this episode, every single one of these, I just like slowly,
- 28:33incrementally added into my daily routine.
- 28:35So it never once felt overwhelming or felt like a complete overhaul of my life.
- 28:41Once one help habit felt solidified, I would add in the next, and I always
- 28:45did it with this like curious, fun, experimental mindset, which means
- 28:50I was just like, I'm curious, like, how's this gonna make me feel?
- 28:52Will this make me feel better?
- 28:53If it doesn't, I'm not gonna keep it in my.
- 28:56My, my Health Habits, like it doesn't matter, but each one of these did make
- 29:00such a noticeable big difference, so.
- 29:04As a 36-year-old mom and a mom of two and a business owner, I can say at
- 29:11the end of this year, like I really do feel like a completely different
- 29:15way than I felt this time last year.
- 29:18I feel like I'm in my twenties again, and arguably even better than I did
- 29:21then considered considering that I no longer diet, restrict, binge eat, take
- 29:26birth control, and binge drink too.
- 29:28So.
- 29:29I hope at the end of this episode that this inspires you, that to know
- 29:33like it's never too late to make changes and to focus less on changing
- 29:36your entire life at one time, and instead, small little habits at a time.
- 29:41Habits too that are about true health and not some crazy fad
- 29:45diet that you read about online.
- 29:47This is the beauty of wellness.
- 29:49Without obsession, each one of these changes again, was made with
- 29:52this fun, exciting, experimental.
- 29:54I'm just.
- 29:55Figuring out what feels good.
- 29:57And it was just, it was a very curious mindset, and each one of them was
- 30:01worth exploring because it did make me feel so different and so much better.
- 30:06I just wanted to see at the end of the year if I could feel better.
- 30:09And what I learned is that I absolutely could and that I can feel vibrant now.
- 30:13That does not mean every day is perfect and that I feel vibrant every day.
- 30:17It's just like the overarching way that I feel most consistently is
- 30:20that overall I feel like myself again up next for health habits in 2026.
- 30:26'cause I'm always exploring, experimenting, having fun with health.
- 30:29That is, again, the beauty after you get your period back, you can
- 30:32do that, is that I want to continue doing root cause work on my psoriasis.
- 30:37I do wanna experiment with a continuous glucose monitor or something.
- 30:40I'm curious about if it would be.
- 30:42Something we would consider in our practice.
- 30:43I think in most cases it wouldn't be appropriate with our
- 30:46disordered eating client base.
- 30:48But that being said, I am curious in certain circumstances, if it would
- 30:52be beneficial for me personally though on a personal level.
- 30:56I am curious if A CGM would help me with sleep and better blood sugar regulation.
- 31:00And also I am very curious to add in creatine to my, uh, supplement plan
- 31:06in 2026 to build more muscle and just overall like maintain these health habits.
- 31:11These are all such an enjoyable part of my daily, weekly,
- 31:15monthly routines that I just.
- 31:16Just can't wait to keep doing all of it.
- 31:18It's just fun.
- 31:19I mean, I love how it all makes me feel, and at the end of the day,
- 31:22I just wanna feel good, you know?
- 31:23So I hope this episode inspired you.
- 31:25Thank you so much for listening.
- 31:26We'll be back in two weeks for another episode.
- 31:28I've had time until then.
- 31:30Know that a nourish body is a powerful one.