Latest / The Menopause Disruptor Podcast / The Pitfalls of Restricting Calories with Louise Digby

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The Pitfalls of Restricting Calories with Louise Digby · The Menopause Disruptor Podcast

• 0:00
  Louise Digby: Your thyroid and its hormones control how fast your metabolism is, how fast the fat burning process happens.
• 0:09
  Louise Digby: If your thyroid isn't functioning optimally.
• 0:12
  Louise Digby: Everything's going to slow down, and again, even if you're on a calorie deficit, you're not necessarily going to be getting into fat burning and burning efficiently.
• 0:22
  Louise Digby: And actually under fueling your thyroid by not eating enough can, slow down your thyroid even more, so you're going to find it even more difficult to lose weight.
• 0:34
  Mary Lee: Welcome to All Things Menopausal.
• 0:36
  Mary Lee: My name is Mary, and I'm a menopause doula.
• 0:39
  Mary Lee: I created this podcast, to build community for women going through menopause transition and to foster resilience through the stories that connect, educate, and empower.
• 0:51
  Mary Lee: These stories are real, raw, relatable, And they're very much relevant to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual whole person that we are.
• 1:01
  Mary Lee: Each week, you will hear from courageous, vulnerable, and knowledgeable guests sharing their passion, their journey, and lived experience.
• 1:10
  Mary Lee: These are little clues to finding solutions to our unique situation.
• 1:14
  Mary Lee: The menopause symptoms are personal, but the experience is universal.
• 1:21
  Mary Lee: In this episode, I sat down with Louise Digby and you're going to hear about the topic of a weight gain and some of the underlying issues that cause stubborn weight loss in menopause.
• 1:35
  Mary Lee: In particular, we talk about hormone imbalance and hormone irregularity and how muscle plays an active role in keeping our bodies metabolically active.
• 1:46
  Mary Lee: We also talk about the calorie deficit and the calorie in calorie out concept, why eating less is doing more harm to our hormones, leading to an increase in cortisol, which strips away sugar from muscle, not from fat.
• 2:03
  Mary Lee: It's not a fat burner.
• 2:05
  Mary Lee: It's using Muscle mass that we need to maintain an active, metabolically active body.
• 2:13
  Mary Lee: We also talk about blood sugar and insulin resistance.
• 2:18
  Mary Lee: And I learned a lot about thyroid and thyroid antibodies.
• 2:23
  Mary Lee: Here's something I also wanted to ask Louise, because I feel that apart from menopause, There are many women, in premenopausal years, early 20s that are facing inflammation and that stubborn weight gain.
• 2:38
  Mary Lee: And so I wanted to understand, is there a correlation between the lifestyle that we're living today that could be causing this, and I'm not talking food.
• 2:48
  Mary Lee: I'm talking exposure to social media.
• 2:51
  Mary Lee: You want to stay tuned for this and what Louise has to say about social media scrolling.
• 2:58
  Mary Lee: We unpacked a lot.
• 2:59
  Mary Lee: but before we start, here's something you need to know about Louise.
• 3:04
  Mary Lee: Louise Digby of Essex is a seasoned nutritional therapist who specializes in helping women tackle the challenges of weight and hormonal balance.
• 3:14
  Mary Lee: Louise stands apart from conventional diets that focus strictly on calorie intake and expenditure.
• 3:20
  Mary Lee: Instead, Louise takes a comprehensive and enjoyable approach, passionately believing that losing weight should not strip away the joy of eating one's favorite foods.
• 3:31
  Mary Lee: Instead, we should be focusing on the underlying issues that often cause stubborn weight problems, particularly as women approach the 30s and 40s and then into their menopausal years.
• 3:42
  Mary Lee: Louise has designed tailored programs that transform dieting into a pleasurable experience.
• 3:48
  Mary Lee: She ensures that delicious meals remain at the heart of every plan achieving lasting results.
• 3:56
  Mary Lee: Louise is also the host of the very popular podcast, Thriving Metabolism.
• 4:02
  Mary Lee: And after this episode, if you want to learn how to repair your metabolism after 40 and get the Practical Woman's Guide to Boosting Metabolism, well, you can go check out her cheat sheet, at louisedigbynutrition.
• 4:15
  Mary Lee: com.
• 4:16
  Mary Lee: I encourage you to check out her masterclass to learn more about how to boost your metabolism and say goodbye to hiding under baggy clothes.
• 4:27
  Mary Lee: I love that.
• 4:28
  Mary Lee: so sit back, enjoy, Well, good morning, Louise Digby all the way from Essex in the UK.
• 4:36
  Mary Lee: So happy to have you on all things menopausal.
• 4:39
  Mary Lee: We're going to talk about one of these areas that many women are complaining about, and that is the stubborn weight loss and the increasing belly fat in our midlife, the menopausal years.
• 4:50
  Mary Lee: We'll unpack that all, but first of all, welcome.
• 4:54
  Louise Digby: Thank you.
• 4:54
  Louise Digby: Thank you so much for having me.
• 4:56
  Louise Digby: I'm really looking forward to digging into all of this and unpacking it with you.
• 4:59
  Mary Lee: Absolutely.
• 5:00
  Mary Lee: And I know the listeners are just going to be listening with pen in hand, but let's unpack it all.
• 5:06
  Mary Lee: First of all, I always like to tell the backstory of my guest.
• 5:11
  Mary Lee: What led you to the career path that you're in and what does that say a little bit about what you are passionate about?
• 5:19
  Louise Digby: So I got into nutrition, I think because when I grew up, my mum always had a really strong interest in nutrition.
• 5:28
  Louise Digby: It's what she wanted to do, but unfortunately at the time you needed to have things like chemistry A level and she didn't have that, so she couldn't do it unfortunately but she was so interested and passionate and That meant that I grew up knowing about what foods did for you and what was good and not so good and all that sort of thing.
• 5:47
  Louise Digby: And I wanted to continue that learning.
• 5:51
  Louise Digby: So I went straight into studying nutrition out of school.
• 5:57
  Louise Digby: And then once I graduated, I, like most nutritionists do, I worked with everyone and anyone in terms of whatever problem they had, whether it was IBS or eczema or acne or depression, you name it.
• 6:12
  Louise Digby: But what I noticed was that everyone that I worked with, pretty much everyone also wanted to lose weight.
• 6:19
  Louise Digby: And there were also people that came to me.
• 6:22
  Louise Digby: Who just wanted to lose weight.
• 6:24
  Louise Digby: And what was interesting was it was the people that were more focused on their health addressing their IBS or addressing their skin issues or whatever the problem was, they were the people who got the best results when it came to the weight and the people who were more focused on just the weight, they weren't getting such good results because they were more focused on portion control and cutting things out of their diet and burning as many calories as possible.
• 6:51
  Louise Digby: And then what I also noticed was that it was women who were perimenopausal, menopausal who were struggling the most with their weight.
• 7:01
  Louise Digby: And yet they were often the ones who were the most dedicated, the most focused when it comes to eating well and staying active, but they just weren't getting the results that you would expect.
• 7:13
  Louise Digby: So all of that really led me to Specializing in weight loss for women over 40, because I really wanted to understand why it was it becomes much more challenging and ultimately help women to thrive through that time of life because unfortunately Not only does the weight tend to go on, but also health can start to deteriorate as well, despite not really changing anything still eating well and staying active.
• 7:43
  Louise Digby: So I think it's such an important time in women's lives to.
• 7:47
  Louise Digby: To get the nutrition right and make sure that they're supporting their health and wellbeing so that they can age really healthfully and have the second half of their life being one that's full of joy and health and wellbeing.
• 8:03
  Mary Lee: Oh my goodness.
• 8:04
  Mary Lee: That's so true.
• 8:04
  Mary Lee: That is what we thrive for.
• 8:05
  Mary Lee: And I appreciate the fact that you love the women to work with the women who are, who want to put in the work and putting in the work means why like understanding the why.
• 8:17
  Mary Lee: Getting that knowledge and, that really talks about the science of the body, is understanding what is happening so that they can get out of that blame and shame attitude and more into, okay, I'm in the driver's seat, I'm in control now.
• 8:30
  Mary Lee: So let's go back and talk about that science.
• 8:33
  Mary Lee: What is happening with the, our bodies as we hit even as early as 35.
• 8:39
  Mary Lee: And we start to see those shifts and how it manifests in our physical and even in our psychological wellbeing.
• 8:47
  Louise Digby: So the totally normal thing that happens is basically our, we're starting to run out of eggs and your ovaries are starting to reduce their function, eventually shutting down.
• 9:00
  Louise Digby: And that transition can take 15 years from the age of 35 ish up until 50 ish.
• 9:07
  Louise Digby: So it's a very, gradual transition where your ovaries are shutting down and therefore they're producing less of the sex hormones.
• 9:16
  Louise Digby: Again, it's a really normal, natural transition.
• 9:19
  Louise Digby: And In an ideal world, because it's such a gradual transition, it doesn't present us with many problems.
• 9:27
  Louise Digby: But in the modern world, where we have a lot of stress and a lot of nutrient insufficiencies and inflammation and all sorts of things going on for us, this transition can be very disruptive, which is when we get a lot of the symptoms and the stubborn weight that tends to come with the perimenopause and menopause.
• 9:50
  Louise Digby: And essentially Stress is a really big factor.
• 9:53
  Louise Digby: Stress is something that can accelerate that decline in your hormones or exacerbate the fluctuations in your hormones as well, which can make this transition a lot more problematic.
• 10:08
  Louise Digby: It's the shift in your sex hormones and how that's disrupted is one of the big factors.
• 10:13
  Louise Digby: And at the same time, we're also losing muscle mass through this, phase from the age of 35, if we don't use it, we lose it when it comes to muscle.
• 10:26
  Louise Digby: And muscle is so important because it's metabolically active.
• 10:31
  Louise Digby: So the less muscle you have, the fewer calories you're burning, even when you're not exercising.
• 10:38
  Louise Digby: No, even when you're sleeping, still burn calories when we're sleeping and the more muscle we have, the more we're burning even at rest.
• 10:45
  Louise Digby: So I think for women, it's a double whammy of the loss of muscle and this change in hormones that makes things more complicated.
• 10:55
  Mary Lee: Yes.
• 10:56
  Mary Lee: So the, metabolic changes, as you talked about, it happens with the muscle, the muscles, we lose muscle mass because of estrogen egress.
• 11:06
  Mary Lee: And then we're having a cascading effect throughout the whole body.
• 11:10
  Mary Lee: We're seeing changes in the brain health as well.
• 11:14
  Mary Lee: So when you are confronted with your, or your clients come to see you, and They're in the state of like, what do I do?
• 11:22
  Mary Lee: How do I go about this?
• 11:24
  Mary Lee: What is the very first thing that you would do to sit down with them and say, okay, look, we can do this.
• 11:30
  Mary Lee: We can accomplish what you're set up to do, but we need to do it in X, Y, and Z.
• 11:36
  Mary Lee: So explain to us that process so that it doesn't seem for the listeners out there who are in this situation.
• 11:43
  Mary Lee: It's not so daunting, like, okay, counting calories, cutting calories.
• 11:48
  Mary Lee: How do we go about planning a regime that is.
• 11:51
  Mary Lee: It's both doable and also one that's I guess you could say the smart goal principle.
• 11:58
  Louise Digby: I think, often where we need to start is rather than looking at what we need to cut out instead, look at what we need to add in.
• 12:07
  Louise Digby: What does our body need to thrive?
• 12:11
  Louise Digby: Because your traditional diets, they're very much focused on just getting you into a calorie deficit in, any means, in any way possible.
• 12:21
  Louise Digby: And the problem with that is that it doesn't actually address the underlying issues.
• 12:28
  Louise Digby: It can make the hormone imbalances worse.
• 12:32
  Louise Digby: Particularly if you've got stuff going on with your thyroid or if you're very stressed or inflamed.
• 12:37
  Louise Digby: Instead of going down that route of cutting stuff out, let's think about what do we need to add in?
• 12:43
  Louise Digby: What is my body going to need to function optimally and thrive?
• 12:49
  Louise Digby: And that will look different for everyone but often the place to start is protein because I've looked at thousands of food diaries in my time and I very rarely see one that has enough protein throughout the day.
• 13:08
  Louise Digby: So making sure that you're, getting protein in and start with breakfast is, such a good place to start.
• 13:15
  Louise Digby: Because if we can have a quality protein breakfast, it's going to set you up for a really good day.
• 13:22
  Louise Digby: It's going to help you to keep your blood sugars balanced.
• 13:25
  Louise Digby: It's going to help you feel energized, it's going to minimize cravings and that all in itself just gives you more willpower.
• 13:33
  Louise Digby: So it just puts you on the front foot if you can get a good high protein breakfast in place.
• 13:40
  Mary Lee: You have a lot of clients that say, yeah, I don't do breakfast, I don't want to eat breakfast.
• 13:46
  Mary Lee: Sometimes.
• 13:47
  Louise Digby: Yeah.
• 13:47
  Louise Digby: Sometimes.
• 13:48
  Louise Digby: And I always try to work with someone where they're at.
• 13:52
  Louise Digby: And if someone doesn't eat breakfast, often there's a few different reasons why that could be for some people it might be that they just don't have any appetite.
• 14:00
  Louise Digby: Sometimes people feel nauseous and they just can't eat first thing in the morning and I'd want to dig into that and find out what's going on there.
• 14:07
  Louise Digby: Why are we feeling like this first thing in the morning?
• 14:10
  Louise Digby: Are there gut issues?
• 14:13
  Louise Digby: Is it stress?
• 14:14
  Louise Digby: Is it just a habit?
• 14:16
  Louise Digby: And for some people it's because they believe that, having a longer overnight fast is going to be something that works better for them, which may or may not be true.
• 14:25
  Louise Digby: So it's understanding, okay, why aren't we having breakfast?
• 14:29
  Louise Digby: And if there doesn't seem to be a particularly good reason for it, then it can be worthwhile trying to have breakfast, even if it's just starting with something really small.
• 14:39
  Louise Digby: Because.
• 14:40
  Louise Digby: Eating kind of gets your metabolism going.
• 14:42
  Louise Digby: It gets your system working.
• 14:44
  Louise Digby: It fuels your body first thing in the morning.
• 14:46
  Louise Digby: And oftentimes getting that breakfast in can be really beneficial.
• 14:51
  Mary Lee: So you mentioned the fast.
• 14:53
  Mary Lee: Let's talk about that for a second.
• 14:55
  Mary Lee: Cause a lot of women are following either a time restricted eating pattern or fasting altogether.
• 15:03
  Mary Lee: First of all, is it safe?
• 15:06
  Mary Lee: And what is the recommended approach to that time restricted eating whereby we limit that window of eating?
• 15:13
  Mary Lee: And how do we apart from breaking fast with protein, I think it's more of how do we address the mindset behind the resistance to have the breakfast in the morning to fuel the body, like you said, to set us up for success.
• 15:30
  Louise Digby: In terms of, is it safe?
• 15:32
  Louise Digby: I think, Yes, mostly it's safe in if you're not doing fasts that are extremely long, yes, it's mostly safe.
• 15:42
  Louise Digby: But the problem that I see is that fasting can be very, stressful for the body, particularly for women who have perimenopausal menopausal.
• 15:56
  Louise Digby: Your, When you fast and you go a prolonged period of time without eating, it can actually drive up your stress hormones, your cortisol levels, because your body's like, where's the food?
• 16:09
  Louise Digby: Where's the nourishment?
• 16:11
  Louise Digby: And so one of the ways that your body gets fuel when it hasn't got food is it will drive up cortisol basically to help strip sugar from the muscles to give you energy.
• 16:25
  Louise Digby: So we don't want that happening.
• 16:27
  Louise Digby: We don't want to be stripping our muscles.
• 16:30
  Louise Digby: We don't want to be driving up our stress hormones.
• 16:33
  Louise Digby: That's going to make your hormone imbalances worse and it's going to drive weight gain.
• 16:38
  Louise Digby: So that's not the case for everyone in terms of when they're fasting, but.
• 16:43
  Louise Digby: If you don't have a strong nutrition foundation in place, if you've got imbalances, particularly to do your thyroid, particularly if you're stressed, then fasting could very well make those things worse and actually lead to weight gain rather than weight loss.
• 17:01
  Louise Digby: So for me, with my clients, I almost never recommend fasting initially, and it's only when I've been working with someone for months and we've got their thyroids well supported and they're taking steps to manage stress and support their body's stress response that we might consider bringing in fasting, but oftentimes we don't bring it in because it can be more disruptive and cause more problems than it's worth.
• 17:28
  Mary Lee: Of course, that is worth a million dollars right there that little piece of advice, and I'm going to capture it again by not eating or driving up the cortisol and that cortisol.
• 17:41
  Mary Lee: will then cause the body or can initiate what's called the stripping of sugar from muscle.
• 17:46
  Mary Lee: And here we think not eating is going to burn the fat that's stored in the body, but stripping away the muscle.
• 17:53
  Mary Lee: And of course the muscle is that metabolically active.
• 17:57
  Mary Lee: So it's burning for us.
• 17:59
  Mary Lee: So if we don't have it, we're not burning.
• 18:02
  Mary Lee: And then the bad hormone balance or imbalance thereafter equals weight gain.
• 18:09
  Mary Lee: That is.
• 18:10
  Mary Lee: so critical.
• 18:11
  Mary Lee: And if we could just understand that concept alone, that could change habits so much to bad habits, to good habits.
• 18:21
  Louise Digby: And it's, I understand why it's confusing because there's so much hype around fasting and that is very good research on fasting to show that it helps with weight loss.
• 18:32
  Louise Digby: It helps lower cholesterol and blood pressure and blood sugars and all these things.
• 18:36
  Louise Digby: But really much of that research has been done on men.
• 18:40
  Louise Digby: And when they've studied women, when they studied women, what they found is that it doesn't actually really help with fat loss.
• 18:45
  Louise Digby: Yes, it can help with blood pressure and all those other metabolic markers, which is a good thing, but it doesn't tend to help with fat loss in women.
• 18:55
  Louise Digby: And when we look at why that is, it's because it's too stressful on the body,
• 19:01
  Mary Lee: too stressful.
• 19:02
  Mary Lee: That alone is reason to start changing habits.
• 19:06
  Mary Lee: So obviously a lot of habit changing involves a mindset.
• 19:11
  Mary Lee: So do you get to work on the mind, the mindset with your clients and how important is that in the process?
• 19:18
  Louise Digby: It's absolutely critical because having a healthy mindset around food and lifestyle and your body.
• 19:28
  Louise Digby: It's absolutely key.
• 19:29
  Louise Digby: It helps you to be consistent in your efforts and it's all well and good knowing what it is you need to do or even how to do it, but if you can't do it consistently, then you're going to have limited results and more often than not, it's mindset factors that are stopping someone from being consistent because of.
• 19:53
  Louise Digby: limiting beliefs that they have about themselves or their ability to achieve something.
• 20:01
  Louise Digby: Or maybe it's because of their relationship with food, they might see food as being the enemy or food as only being something that has calorific value and rather than nutritional value.
• 20:15
  Louise Digby: And so that can mean that you.
• 20:18
  Louise Digby: Always default to trying to restrict what you're eating rather than focusing on getting in what your body actually needs.
• 20:25
  Mary Lee: I would say this is a perfect time.
• 20:27
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• 20:31
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• 20:32
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• 20:35
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• 20:36
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• 20:39
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• 20:47
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• 20:55
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• 21:13
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• 21:24
  Mary Lee: The calorie in calorie out concept.
• 21:27
  Mary Lee: Now I sat down and I listened to your very first episode of your podcast, and that was on the calorie in calorie out.
• 21:34
  Mary Lee: And you had said you'd just listened to Dr.
• 21:38
  Mary Lee: Tim, our famous gut health doctor who has has been claiming that calories are essentially ineffective not even worth worrying about.
• 21:49
  Mary Lee: But we are fixated.
• 21:50
  Mary Lee: We grew up in a menopausal women.
• 21:52
  Mary Lee: We will say we grew up in that era where it was all about the calories.
• 21:56
  Mary Lee: Counting your calories all the time.
• 21:58
  Mary Lee: There was weighing machines for your food and to.
• 22:01
  Mary Lee: Calculations to figure out how much calories were in.
• 22:04
  Mary Lee: And I think that's a I'm more solo food.
• 22:06
  Mary Lee: What is happening with that concept of calories in, calories out?
• 22:10
  Mary Lee: Does it still work?
• 22:11
  Mary Lee: Is it a principle still to follow?
• 22:14
  Mary Lee: Or what's Dr.
• 22:15
  Mary Lee: Tim got to say about all of that?
• 22:18
  Louise Digby: We've been taught that it's very black and white.
• 22:21
  Louise Digby: If you get in a calorie deficit, then you'll lose weight.
• 22:24
  Louise Digby: But that's not true.
• 22:26
  Louise Digby: Getting into a calorie deficit doesn't mean that you're always going to lose weight.
• 22:30
  Louise Digby: And this is why so many women come to me because they're like, I'm in a calorie deficit.
• 22:34
  Louise Digby: I'm burning so many calories and restricting my diet, but I'm still not losing weight.
• 22:39
  Louise Digby: So I see time and time again that it just doesn't work for everyone.
• 22:44
  Louise Digby: And.
• 22:44
  Louise Digby: The reason for this is because there's a lot of things that need to be in place for your body to be able to burn fat that have nothing to do with being in a calorie deficit.
• 22:56
  Louise Digby: So for example, blood sugar hormones.
• 23:00
  Louise Digby: So insulin is a hormone that when our blood sugars are too high, it reduces down the amount of sugar in the blood by moving that sugar into your cells so that we can use it for energy.
• 23:15
  Louise Digby: But if we don't need the energy, something's gonna happen with it and we store it as fat.
• 23:19
  Louise Digby: So you can essentially think of insulin as like a fat storage hormone.
• 23:25
  Louise Digby: And if your insulin is raised consistently.
• 23:30
  Louise Digby: Even if you're in a calorie deficit, you're not going to be getting into fat burning mode.
• 23:35
  Louise Digby: So it's our hormones that control whether we're burning fat or storing fat.
• 23:41
  Louise Digby: Then when you bring into the, picture your thyroid.
• 23:47
  Louise Digby: Your thyroid and its hormones control how fast your metabolism is, how fast the fat burning process happens.
• 23:56
  Louise Digby: If your thyroid isn't functioning optimally.
• 23:59
  Louise Digby: Everything's going to slow down, and again, even if you're on a calorie deficit, you're not necessarily going to be getting into fat burning and burning efficiently.
• 24:09
  Louise Digby: And actually under fueling your thyroid by not eating enough can, can slow down your thyroid even more, so you're going to find it even more difficult to lose weight.
• 24:21
  Louise Digby: And then we can go as far as looking at a cellular level, what's happening when we burn fat.
• 24:26
  Louise Digby: And when we look at the mitochondria, which are the little energy factories in all our cells that take our food and turn it into energy, there's many different nutrients vitamins and minerals that are involved in that fat burning process.
• 24:45
  Louise Digby: If you've got deficiencies, Or if there's some sort of issue that means that those nutrients aren't getting to where they need to be, you're gonna not be burning fat or making energy very efficiently.
• 24:58
  Louise Digby: It doesn't matter if we're getting a calorie deficit, if those things aren't in place, and there's other things that we could go into as well, if those things aren't in place, you're not going to be burning fat.
• 25:07
  Mary Lee: Very interesting.
• 25:09
  Mary Lee: The thyroid alone is a topic that, I don't think we talk about enough when it comes to women's health and in particular when we move into the menopausal years.
• 25:20
  Mary Lee: And A lot of women either don't get thyroid testing done or, the numbers aren't clearly understood, I would think.
• 25:30
  Mary Lee: So let's talk about that.
• 25:32
  Mary Lee: I really like the concept where you explain the underfueling of the thyroid.
• 25:37
  Mary Lee: So when you're working with a client, is it recommended first that you get some tests done on some blood testing, blood sugar levels tested, the thyroid levels tested to best understand where they are with their thyroid and with that in mind is if one of the first steps then is to get the thyroid back to a functioning where it's functioning optimally.
• 26:01
  Louise Digby: And
• 26:03
  Mary Lee: can that be done alongside building a proper nutrition plan?
• 26:08
  Louise Digby: Absolutely.
• 26:09
  Louise Digby: So yeah, getting proper testing done is often really, helpful because over here in the UK, and I'm sure it's similar where you are, the tests that your doctors do as standard are very basic.
• 26:22
  Louise Digby: They don't go into any real depth in terms of telling us how the thyroid's functioning.
• 26:28
  Louise Digby: for listening.
• 26:30
  Louise Digby: They'll look at things like your TSH, which is the hormone that communicates between your brain and your thyroid.
• 26:37
  Louise Digby: It doesn't actually give us a indication of the thyroid function.
• 26:41
  Louise Digby: Sometimes if you're lucky, they may test your T4 as well, which is the thyroid hormone, which is helpful to know, but still not the whole picture because your body has to convert that T4 into T3, which is the most active thyroid hormone.
• 27:01
  Louise Digby: And that's the thing that never gets tested.
• 27:03
  Louise Digby: And if that isn't happening efficiently, then you're not going to be burning fat very efficiently.
• 27:10
  Louise Digby: You're not going to be feeling very good either.
• 27:12
  Louise Digby: Even if the TSH and the T4 are optimal.
• 27:16
  Louise Digby: Having a more detailed thyroid test that looks at the T3, ideally also your thyroid antibodies, is really, helpful because that helps us start to understand, okay, why is thyroid not functioning as well as it could be.
• 27:31
  Louise Digby: And there's lots of other things that We like to test like HbA1c to do with your blood sugars, and gut health and all sorts of other things, but certainly a thyroid, a detailed thyroid test is a good place to start.
• 27:46
  Louise Digby: And then in terms of what to do about that once you've got that information.
• 27:52
  Louise Digby: There's so much that you can do to support your thyroid function and it starts with understanding why you have a problem in the first place.
• 28:01
  Louise Digby: Is it that you don't have enough of that T4 hormone?
• 28:06
  Louise Digby: Is it that you're not converting the T4 into the T3?
• 28:10
  Louise Digby: Is it that your antibodies are elevated and that means that your immune system is essentially attacking and suppressing your thyroid?
• 28:18
  Louise Digby: And if that's the case, then we want to be thinking about why is that happening?
• 28:23
  Louise Digby: Is it because you've got imbalances in your gut, inflammation, deficiencies, a high toxic load?
• 28:30
  Louise Digby: Stress.
• 28:31
  Louise Digby: Maybe it's because you're highly stressed or you're not sleeping properly.
• 28:34
  Louise Digby: Maybe it's all of those things and more there's lots of things that we could think about.
• 28:39
  Louise Digby: But when you start really getting into the nitty gritty of it and digging down into the underlying causes, there's so much you can do to optimize your thyroid, which I think is so important to talk about because when you go to the doctors, if they do pick up a thyroid issue, it's one treatment for all.
• 28:57
  Louise Digby: That's all you get.
• 28:58
  Mary Lee: exactly.
• 28:59
  Mary Lee: it's the cookie cutter approach.
• 29:01
  Mary Lee: I love how you say we got to unpack it just like we said very beginning and getting into the nitty gritty because the body is, so complex.
• 29:10
  Mary Lee: And yet I think once it's understood.
• 29:13
  Mary Lee: It's very simple.
• 29:15
  Mary Lee: And one thing leads to another.
• 29:17
  Mary Lee: Appreciate that you also brought up the gut and just that role that it plays, the good bacteria and the bad bacteria.
• 29:27
  Mary Lee: And I just want to close the loop on the thyroid before we get into that gut health issue.
• 29:33
  Mary Lee: I didn't even understand thyroid antibodies before until you mentioned it in the fact that if they're high, our own immune system could be attacking our thyroid.
• 29:44
  Mary Lee: So what does that look like?
• 29:45
  Mary Lee: How does that show up in the body?
• 29:48
  Louise Digby: So when your thyroid is underactive or overactive, actually, the, One of the reasons why that can happen is because your immune system is being hyper reactive and you know that can be for lots of reasons.
• 30:05
  Louise Digby: Often it can be linked to things like food intolerances where a certain food might be over stimulating your immune system.
• 30:12
  Louise Digby: And then what we get is called cross reactivity.
• 30:16
  Louise Digby: And basically the proteins in your thyroid are a very, similar structure.
• 30:24
  Louise Digby: to certain things like gluten, for example.
• 30:28
  Louise Digby: And so if your body is having a reaction to gluten, sometimes your thyroid can be in the crossfire and your immune system's going out and it's attacking gluten because, for whatever reason, it sees it as a threat.
• 30:41
  Louise Digby: But unfortunately, at the same time, your thyroid, your immune system will be attacking your thyroid.
• 30:47
  Louise Digby: Now, that's just one example.
• 30:48
  Louise Digby: That's not to say that everyone with thyroid issue or suspected thyroid issue should cut out gluten.
• 30:54
  Louise Digby: It's, I do find it's very individual and varied what might be triggering it and often getting the gut functioning properly can help you to tolerate these foods better.
• 31:06
  Louise Digby: And it may not even be a food trigger.
• 31:08
  Louise Digby: in the first place.
• 31:09
  Louise Digby: It could be stress, for example, that's driving an overactive immune system.
• 31:16
  Louise Digby: But that attack on the thyroid can do one of two things.
• 31:20
  Louise Digby: It can, well, firstly, it makes it inflamed, but that can cause overactive thyroid, which is known as Graves disease, or it can cause underactive thyroid, which is Hashimoto's disease.
• 31:34
  Louise Digby: And sometimes it can go overactive and then become underactive, either because of just that natural progression or because.
• 31:44
  Louise Digby: If it goes overactive, then your doctors try to treat an overactive thyroid, which makes it go underactive.
• 31:50
  Louise Digby: So it can be a little bit of a tricky thing to unpick.
• 31:54
  Louise Digby: But ultimately, if we can find out what's triggering the immune system and calm it down, then we can stop that, that basically attack on the thyroid and help it to start repairing and healing.
• 32:09
  Mary Lee: That is very knowledgeable information.
• 32:12
  Mary Lee: So let's just recap Graves disease is over active Hoshimoto's is under active.
• 32:19
  Mary Lee: Because I have had clients present some of these and, it goes right back to their thyroid, but now understanding how it all works together is the key to the remedy of whether it's got health issues, or that again that stubborn weight loss.
• 32:39
  Mary Lee: One thing that I have come across, and this is not for perimenopause or menopausal women.
• 32:46
  Mary Lee: We're starting to see it in younger girls in their early, twenties that are already faced with the stubborn weight loss.
• 32:54
  Mary Lee: And, I look at it from a point of view as, okay, well, what's their lifestyle.
• 32:59
  Mary Lee: And this is quite interesting.
• 33:01
  Mary Lee: We're going to take a real diversion off topic, maybe just a little bit, but alcohol consumption lends itself to the increased weight, the sugary foods, the sugary drinks, Starbucks, But I think there's something else happening.
• 33:17
  Mary Lee: And you mentioned this with The stress and and the increased stress can cause some of that driving up the cortisol, which again, cascading effect on the body exposure to social media and the comparison and the feeling unworthy.
• 33:39
  Mary Lee: Of course that has got to be the ultimate stressor in anybody's life, perimenopause or premenopause.
• 33:48
  Mary Lee: For females in general.
• 33:50
  Mary Lee: I think what we're exposing ourselves to just from our device can be a huge stressor on the body.
• 33:58
  Mary Lee: So can, without getting into the whole politics of the social media good or not, let's just talk about that, stress, the external stress, not necessarily what's happening internally, but the external environment that drives up that cortisol.
• 34:14
  Louise Digby: Yeah, I think it's a really complicated issue and it's something that when we're doing it, when we're scrolling we think, It's good for us because it's distracting us and we're having laughing at things or learning things or whatever it might be.
• 34:33
  Louise Digby: But at the same time, we're obviously seeing a lot of.
• 34:37
  Louise Digby: Things that aren't real, that are quite confusing and can put a lot of pressures on us to feel like we need to be a certain way or live a certain way.
• 34:48
  Louise Digby: And at the same time, I think once you finally do stop scrolling, You've got that feeling of I've wasted all that time and I haven't achieved anything.
• 35:00
  Louise Digby: And your dopamine levels are messed up because you've been getting hit after hit of, dopamine after everything you've scrolled through.
• 35:09
  Louise Digby: It does mess us up.
• 35:11
  Louise Digby: I think just from that, but also there's things like how it disrupts our circadian rhythm when we, Looking at blue light and devices all the time, which we are we spend all day on, on our laptops and then we spend all evening watching TV and on our phones and that blue light does lots of things to our body.
• 35:40
  Louise Digby: It suppresses the production of melatonin, which is the sleepy hormone, which is very anti inflammatory by the way.
• 35:49
  Louise Digby: And so when we don't have enough melatonin.
• 35:53
  Louise Digby: It's difficult for us to get to sleep, it's difficult for us to stay asleep and it's difficult for us to have the quality of sleep that we need to do all that metabolic repair that needs to happen overnight.
• 36:07
  Louise Digby: So there's that.
• 36:08
  Louise Digby: But it's also been shown that blue light raises blood sugars, which is like, that blows my mind every time I think about it.
• 36:17
  Louise Digby: Just looking at something can raise your blood sugars and it's to do with heart diseases.
• 36:22
  Louise Digby: Yeah, that is unbelievable.
• 36:24
  Louise Digby: Yeah, and it's to do with how it raises your stress hormone.
• 36:29
  Louise Digby: So that's the other thing that happens.
• 36:30
  Louise Digby: It raises your stress hormone levels It has all this effect on our, various different hormones, which disrupts our sleep.
• 36:38
  Louise Digby: It disrupts our appetite because we start seeking the dopamine from elsewhere.
• 36:44
  Louise Digby: We or seeking behaviors.
• 36:48
  Louise Digby: We can start to, even when we're trying to avoid the social media we can start to try and get that dopamine elsewhere.
• 36:56
  Louise Digby: So Yeah, I don't have a lot of good things to say about it, to be honest.
• 37:00
  Mary Lee: That is incredible information.
• 37:01
  Mary Lee: Again, so much great knowledge.
• 37:04
  Mary Lee: Blue light raises our blood sugar level.
• 37:07
  Mary Lee: That's incredible.
• 37:09
  Mary Lee: You can almost see a pattern.
• 37:10
  Mary Lee: Ask a client.
• 37:12
  Mary Lee: So how many hours did you spend on your device last night?
• 37:16
  Mary Lee: Maybe two or three.
• 37:17
  Mary Lee: It's nothing.
• 37:18
  Mary Lee: What'd you have for breakfast?
• 37:20
  Mary Lee: A donut, a croissant, needed the dopamine.
• 37:25
  Mary Lee: I'm seeing a pattern here.
• 37:27
  Mary Lee: This is really, interesting information.
• 37:30
  Mary Lee: So much information, Louise, to unpack, but let's move to how you do deliver the, your plethora of information to your clients, because I will say you have a pretty awesome program that all begins with your metabolism masterclass.
• 37:49
  Mary Lee: Did I get that right?
• 37:51
  Mary Lee: Yes.
• 37:51
  Mary Lee: Okay.
• 37:52
  Mary Lee: Tell us all about that because I'm sure the listeners by now are saying, how do I get more of Louise?
• 37:58
  Mary Lee: And we're going to tell you.
• 37:59
  Louise Digby: So the metabolism masterclass is a masterclass that I run pretty much every week.
• 38:05
  Louise Digby: And it's the, basically the steps that I go through with my clients.
• 38:10
  Louise Digby: And touching on some of the things that we've spoken about today to help you to understand why it's not about calories.
• 38:16
  Louise Digby: It's not about willpower.
• 38:17
  Louise Digby: It's about digging deeper and uncovering.
• 38:20
  Louise Digby: These imbalances and factors that drive weight gain, particularly around the time of perimenopause and menopause.
• 38:29
  Louise Digby: And then my program, the nourish method that is like you said today, there's so much information, there's so much to unpack, which is why I work with my clients for six months because we've got to make sure that we do things properly, make sure that we.
• 38:47
  Louise Digby: Go through things strategically and that we're changing things in a way that's going to last.
• 38:52
  Louise Digby: We want to change habits.
• 38:53
  Louise Digby: We're not about overhauling everything and expecting you to have the willpower to be able to keep doing that forever.
• 39:00
  Louise Digby: It's more about taking baby steps, doing one thing at a time, taking the steps that are going to be most impactful for you to ensure that the.
• 39:11
  Louise Digby: The changes you are making are giving you the most bang for your buck, if you like, in terms of health and wellbeing and progress.
• 39:19
  Louise Digby: So we always start with running tests to find out what's going on, what imbalances there may be that could be driving weight gain or any other issues that might be going on whether that's.
• 39:31
  Louise Digby: Skin issues, gut issues or whatever.
• 39:34
  Louise Digby: so we find out what's going on and then we build a personalized action plan.
• 39:39
  Louise Digby: So it's, would be unique to the individual to address these imbalances and that we'll look at food and lifestyle and potentially supplements, if that's something that's going to help to aid their, recovery, if you like.
• 39:54
  Louise Digby: And then, yeah we, work with them step by step for six months to make sure Not only are they able to achieve their health goals and lose weight while they're working with us, but they're also able to maintain that in the longterm.
• 40:07
  Mary Lee: And so can you work with clients online, anywhere around the world?
• 40:11
  Louise Digby: Yeah, absolutely.
• 40:13
  Mary Lee: All right.
• 40:13
  Mary Lee: Well, let's tell our listeners where they can find you.
• 40:17
  Louise Digby: So my website is LouiseDigbyNutrition.
• 40:20
  Louise Digby: com and you can also connect with me on socials by searching at Louise Digby Nutrition.
• 40:27
  Mary Lee: All right.
• 40:28
  Mary Lee: We'll get those in the show notes.
• 40:29
  Mary Lee: Louise, I always like to ask my guests one question what is your favorite book or what book are you reading right now?
• 40:35
  Mary Lee: And what does that say about you or what valuable information in that book would you like to share with the listeners?
• 40:44
  Louise Digby: there's two books that immediately sprang to mind.
• 40:46
  Louise Digby: So if I can say two, that would be
• 40:48
  Mary Lee: great.
• 40:50
  Louise Digby: One of them is called ultra processed people.
• 40:54
  Louise Digby: Oh, you've probably heard of it.
• 40:57
  Louise Digby: I can never remember the name of the guy but he's one of the twin doctors who's from the UK and he talks all about ultra processed foods.
• 41:06
  Louise Digby: And I started reading it thinking I'm going to know all of this I've been reading I've, this is my bag, I do this really, I'm going to know it.
• 41:13
  Louise Digby: But there's so much information in there.
• 41:15
  Louise Digby: It's, so interesting.
• 41:16
  Louise Digby: And he really walks you through his experience of changing his diet for the worse.
• 41:23
  Louise Digby: He added in all these ultra processed foods and in a very short space of time his, body changed massively, including his brain.
• 41:32
  Louise Digby: They did an MRI and found really concerning changes.
• 41:35
  Louise Digby: So it's absolutely fascinating.
• 41:38
  Louise Digby: So I highly recommend that book for anyone who needs a little bit of encouragement to start weeding out those ultra processed foods.
• 41:45
  Louise Digby: And also to understand exactly what they are, because I think it's quite confusing to know what an ultra processed food is.
• 41:53
  Louise Digby: So there's that book.
• 41:54
  Louise Digby: And then there's another great book, which isn't all that new, but it's a book I read probably about 10 years or so ago, but still I recommend it to clients.
• 42:04
  Louise Digby: And it's called Rushing Woman's Syndrome.
• 42:09
  Louise Digby: And It very much relates to the conversation that we've been having today because it is all about the modern woman and how the we expect ourselves to be able to do it all and have it all, but it comes at the cost of our hormones.
• 42:24
  Louise Digby: And just this, even if we don't feel stressed, just this constant rushing around and doing everything all the time for everyone and never doing anything for ourselves, it really walks you through the impact that has.
• 42:37
  Louise Digby: And there's lots of like symptom checklists in there, all sorts of things like that.
• 42:41
  Louise Digby: So I really enjoyed both those books.
• 42:44
  Mary Lee: Okay.
• 42:45
  Mary Lee: We're going to share those books in the show notes.
• 42:47
  Mary Lee: Fantastic recommendations.
• 42:49
  Mary Lee: I'm glad you shared that.
• 42:51
  Mary Lee: I think that is going to be some really great sage advice.
• 42:55
  Mary Lee: In those books.
• 42:55
  Mary Lee: And it's funny because the teacher's always learning, right?
• 42:59
  Mary Lee: We're always seeking new information to enhance our knowledge, to expand our way of thinking.
• 43:06
  Mary Lee: So these are two great books.
• 43:07
  Mary Lee: And we're definitely going to share in the show notes as well as where Our listeners can find you go check out the metabolism masterclass and the nourish method program, Louise Digby, all the way from Essex.
• 43:19
  Mary Lee: Thank you so much for your time, your energy, for your knowledge.
• 43:24
  Mary Lee: This has been an incredible conversation.
• 43:26
  Mary Lee: We unpacked so much.
• 43:27
  Mary Lee: There's so much more to talk about.
• 43:29
  Mary Lee: I am sure.
• 43:29
  Louise Digby: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
• 43:33
  Louise Digby: It's been so good chatting with you.
• 43:37
  Mary Lee: We covered so much in this episode.
• 43:40
  Mary Lee: I hope you took notes, but if you didn't, here are my few key takeaways in this episode with Louise Digby, the role of stress.
• 43:48
  Mary Lee: Perimenopause is that time frame, of course, when our ovaries are shutting down and producing less of the sex hormone, estrogen, progesterone.
• 43:56
  Mary Lee: And this is normal and natural, but it feels anything but normal.
• 44:01
  Mary Lee: In an ideal world, wouldn't it be great that it was just a gradual transition to the point where we had little or no problems?
• 44:08
  Mary Lee: But we don't live in that ideal world.
• 44:10
  Mary Lee: Our modern day stresses, including Nutrition insufficiencies and increased inflammation in the body causes more disruption and leads to stubborn weight gain.
• 44:21
  Mary Lee: Stress can accelerate our hormone decline, unfortunately, and exacerbate those fluctuations.
• 44:27
  Mary Lee: So it's really key to address stress, and it is one of my four pillars to health and well being.
• 44:33
  Mary Lee: Role of hormones and muscle in weight management.
• 44:36
  Mary Lee: Hormone balance and muscle contributes to maintaining a healthy metabolism.
• 44:42
  Mary Lee: muscle mass declines significantly as we age, without that muscle, we are burning fewer calories, making weight loss more problematic.
• 44:51
  Mary Lee: maintaining muscle is vital keeping our body metabolically active.
• 44:58
  Mary Lee: The calorie deficit and cortisol conundrum.
• 45:01
  Mary Lee: Now calorie deficit, of course, is when you're burning more calories than you are taking in, but this can negatively impact our hormones, especially cortisol, which can lead to muscle loss instead of fat loss.
• 45:15
  Mary Lee: when we go too long without getting calories, it puts a stress on the body and this raises cortisol levels that are counterintuitive to weight loss, and this is especially true for perimenopausal end.
• 45:26
  Mary Lee: Menopausal women, when they were already undergoing a stress as a result of hormone fluctuation.
• 45:33
  Mary Lee: See what cortisol will do, will strip sugars away from muscle to provide energy for the body.
• 45:38
  Mary Lee: It's not going to strip away sugar from fat unfortunately.
• 45:43
  Mary Lee: Addressing stubborn weight loss should begin with what to add in to enable the body to function optimally.
• 45:50
  Mary Lee: And we've heard this before in previous episodes, The place to start with is protein.
• 45:55
  Mary Lee: Start with protein.
• 45:56
  Mary Lee: protein in the first meal of the day to set yourself up for success throughout the day.
• 46:01
  Mary Lee: It's really like kickstarting the metabolism.
• 46:04
  Mary Lee: And if you are fasting or following a time restricted eating regime, still make protein an important part of that first meal of the day.
• 46:13
  Mary Lee: And again, Fasting can be dangerous, most fasting studies to date has still only been conducted on men, not women, and certainly not perimenopausal women.
• 46:24
  Mary Lee: So while it might be helpful to fast with those blood pressure markers, overall it is too stressful on the female's body.
• 46:32
  Mary Lee: Louise recommends fasting should only be done.
• 46:35
  Mary Lee: When strong dietary foundations are in place, insulin and thyroid, two hormones, we don't often think about certainly not thyroid when it comes to testing it properly for women.
• 46:48
  Mary Lee: Insulin is a fat storing hormone that converts sugar to fuel.
• 46:52
  Mary Lee: If blood sugar levels are too high, regardless of whether you're in a calorie deficit, the body will not burn fat.
• 46:59
  Mary Lee: Same with thyroid.
• 47:00
  Mary Lee: Thyroid controls the rate at which fat is burned.
• 47:03
  Mary Lee: When it isn't functioning optimally, weight loss and fat burning will be problematic.
• 47:09
  Mary Lee: So it's really crucial for proper thyroid testing for women.
• 47:13
  Mary Lee: not to understand what the T4 levels are, but how well T4 is converting into T3, which is the active thyroid hormone.
• 47:22
  Mary Lee: Thyroid issues can manifest as immune system irregularities.
• 47:27
  Mary Lee: So it is so vital to find out what the root cause of the thyroid issue is and address it.
• 47:32
  Mary Lee: And that often can be simply by making food adjustments to address food intolerances.
• 47:38
  Mary Lee: impacting the gut microbiome, or, addressing lifestyle stresses.
• 47:43
  Mary Lee: And, and stresses in the environment, and two such stresses from the environment, social media, and blue light exposure.
• 47:51
  Mary Lee: This will impact melatonin production.
• 47:54
  Mary Lee: Melatonin is a natural anti inflammatory and estrogen is as well.
• 47:59
  Mary Lee: So as estrogen egress, we're losing that anti inflammatory properties, which is so important to maintain melatonin levels.
• 48:06
  Mary Lee: so without melatonin, we encounter sleep disturbances, and this can also become more exacerbated if we're already experiencing some sleep problems with menopause.
• 48:17
  Mary Lee: And then of course, this puts in even more stress on the body, and that becomes a disruptor for weight loss because we are not getting proper time for metabolic repair during our sleep.
• 48:30
  Mary Lee: And then worse.
• 48:31
  Mary Lee: Blue light exposure.
• 48:33
  Mary Lee: I didn't know this.
• 48:35
  Mary Lee: blue light exposure can raise our blood sugar levels which thereby impact insulin sensitivity and cause insulin resistance.
• 48:44
  Mary Lee: not sure where to start?
• 48:46
  Mary Lee: I would say, begin by cutting out things that no longer serve you, and in the context of this discussion, we talked about processed foods.
• 48:55
  Mary Lee: Start adding in what can make a difference, and get rid of what can't.
• 49:01
  Mary Lee: We talked about muscle.
• 49:02
  Mary Lee: Fuel your muscle with protein.
• 49:05
  Mary Lee: Okay, this can be very confusing and I'm certainly seeing it with my clients who are asking, okay, but how much, when and where?
• 49:12
  Mary Lee: I unpack the what, when, where, why, and how much of protein in a free guide.
• 49:18
  Mary Lee: My free guide, Power Up with Protein, you can download.
• 49:22
  Mary Lee: The link is in the show notes.
• 49:24
  Mary Lee: It is completely free.
• 49:25
  Mary Lee: Go check that out.
• 49:27
  Mary Lee: And of course you can check out Louise's program, The Nourish Method.
• 49:31
  Mary Lee: And her masterclass, you can find her online at LouiseDigbyNutrition.
• 49:35
  Mary Lee: com Thank you for tuning in to another insightful episode of All Things Menopausal.
• 49:44
  Mary Lee: If you enjoyed today's episode and want to stay connected, be sure to follow me on Instagram for tips and updates.
• 49:51
  Mary Lee: For even more support and community, Join our Facebook group, personal and universal, where we share experiences, advice, and empower each other through the transformative journey.
• 50:02
  Mary Lee: And if you found value in today's episode, consider leaving a review on Apple podcasts.
• 50:09
  Mary Lee: Your feedback helps reach more women who can benefit from these conversations.
• 50:14
  Mary Lee: until next time stay empowered, stay informed and Remember midlife should be the best life and it will be.
• 50:21
  Mary Lee: Namaste.