Latest / Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40 / 55. The Midlife Health Conversation Every Woman Over 40 Needs to Hear: Interview with Dr. Stephanie Elder, Part 2

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55. The Midlife Health Conversation Every Woman Over 40 Needs to Hear: Interview with Dr. Stephanie Elder, Part 2 · Midlife Glow Up: Simplifying Fitness, Nutrition and Healthy Habits for Women over 40

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today, Dr.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Stephanie Elder is back, and we are taking turns in the interview seat to explore how medical care and everyday habits fit together in this season of life.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to share a few questions that might get you thinking a little bit differently about your own health.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: So let's dive right in.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the Midlife Glow Up Podcast, where we simplify fitness, nutrition, and healthy habits for women over 40.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Joan Dandano, your midlife health and wellness coach.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are ready to feel strong, consistent, and confident in this season of life, then you're in the right place, my friend.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, welcome.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Stephanie Elder is back for interview number two, and I'm really excited about this.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Stephanie, thanks for being willing to come back on with me.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: The first time was so fun.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is great.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: I got some really great feedback from the first interview that we did together.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: One of my clients said she was just in tears.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: She was in a parking lot listening to our podcast and just crying.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Oh no, I hope that's good.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, no, it was.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: She for the first time felt seen and validated that her symptoms related to menopause were not all up in her head and that she isn't the only one experiencing these.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I thought that was really cool.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to have you back today.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is a little bit different.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So when we first had our first conversation, we were mainly talking about perimenopause and menopause and just what's happening like hormonally and what are the symptoms that we're experiencing and how finding the right provider and really advocating for yourself is just so important in this phase of life.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So for those of you who did not listen to our first episode, we definitely recommend go back and listen to that one.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: But this is Stephanie Elder.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: She's a nurse practitioner and a certified menopause provider.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And she is the owner of the Evolve Menopause Clinic here in Issaquah in the Seattle area.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the first episode we did, we talked mainly about like what is menopause?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Why am I feeling this way?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Am I going crazy?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer is no, you're not.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what's going on.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: But menopause and really this midlife health is more than just managing those symptoms.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's happening inside of our bodies and in our lives is interesting and it kind of sometimes can feel like it takes over.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So today we're going to do something a little bit different with our conversation today.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I will ask Stephanie some questions that I think that our listeners might have, again, about hormones, but also more of the cardiometabolic side of our health and just kind of the bigger picture of what is actually happening in the stage of life that we need to be aware of from a medical professional.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then Stephanie's going to ask me some questions more about like the day-to-day taking care of ourselves through different avenues like fitness, nutrition, habits, and the things that I talk about a lot of times, consistency and community.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think there are a lot of pieces to midlife health.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And once we can understand how those pieces kind of work together, then we can be better equipped and prepared to take care of ourselves during this chapter.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, Stephanie, welcome to the Midlife Glow Up Podcast.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Super happy that you are here again.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So if you could just, again, if our listeners have not didn't hear your original episode, if you want to just give us the brief, how did you get into this field and kind of what does it look like for you today to be a menopause practitioner?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, again, Joan, great to see you again.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is fantastic.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was so much fun the first time, thrilled to be back.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was my own journey, which I outlined in the first podcast.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I was working in cardiology.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I got my doctorate at UW, and I had been had an extensive uh cardiac background, but then things started changing significantly with me.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had almost all of the perimetopause symptoms that we talk about, but I was continually farmed out to other professionals.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: My labs, I would go to see my primary care, everything was normal.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I showed my labs to other people.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I can't be normal.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't feel normal.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is what what is going on with me is normal.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I am so tired.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was an athlete, and then I was barely dragging myself through the day.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had tremendous gut issues.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had other types of skin issues, joint issues.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you literally you name it, and I was seeing all types of specialists, the therapists for the first time in my life, which I mean, I think therapy is wonderful, but it just had never come up until I'm like, okay, well, I'm going crazy or I have early dementia, or both.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Could be.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And to the credit of the wonderful people I saw, they tried.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they were trying to tell, but uh, but I just kept coming back with everybody saying, everything looks good.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: No issues with your gut.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, well, you know, you might be a little crazy, but you know, I don't think you have dementia.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and uh your skin, well, it just looks a little dry.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just put a little bit more lotion on it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just, you know, maybe that that anxiety is just you need to relax a little bit more, drink less coffee, drink less alcohol, drink to, you know, all these things that we've all heard.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just just relax.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is just you being midlife and too much stress.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and then luckily it was it was getting some information and realizing that what was happening may be hormonal.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I found somebody that might it kind of cautiously started, but I pushed for it hard, which we talked about a lot in the first podcast.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had to push hard for it and it changed my life.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I was relieved, but then I was mad that I've gone through years, years of dismissal, years of pain, years of discomfort, years of thinking I was crazy, years of not sleeping, and sleep studies and all this.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, this was hormonal?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding me right now?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: How come nobody talks about this?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it just took a while for me to wake up.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's basically I dropped what I was doing at the U and I sought a mentor and got training and certification and couldn't find what I was looking for in this standard traditional setting, uh, you know, being UW or uh Swedish.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to open my own clinic.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where I'm at today.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So how long has it been?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's been a year and five months.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I guess technically open the doors.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And how many patients do you have?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or how many patients do you typically see?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I told myself I would cat myself at 300, but now we're getting close to 400.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um goodness.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I remember when I first met you and I was like, I don't know, I'm just gonna give it a shot.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if if I build it, maybe they'll come.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they've come.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: They have.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm not the only crazy person that are quote in air quotes crazy person out there.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was not.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually really validating.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I bet, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what would you say is the biggest transformation that you have seen through several hundreds of patients who walk through your door?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like someone who comes in, I'm guessing, feels defeated, they feel discouraged, they feel frustrated, like they're going crazy, they feel maybe like nobody's taking them seriously.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you help them, like what is that?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: How would you identify that transformation?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am so lucky because this happens almost on a daily basis.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, where patients come in and they tell me that their life is totally changed.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them were on the brink of divorce.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I've loved my husband for years and years my whole life, and now I I can't even stand to be in the same room as them.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, there's a lot to unpack there.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or my kids were my life, and now I don't even want to be a mother anymore.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh it it the most impactful things for people is getting their energy back so they can participate in life and get their sanity back so they can participate with their family and their friends.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, being able to engage and you know, like like I mean it it it sounds cliche, but people want to feel like they used to feel.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like they I wanna I wanna feel like myself again.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just want to be normal.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking for heroics, you know.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I know I'm you know, I know I'm not gonna be, you know, the somebody that I never was, basically.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to feel like myself again.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it it makes me happy to see that happen on a daily basis.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is amazing.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: That is just amazing.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So would you say that hormone therapy, menopausal hormone therapy is what it's called now, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the main thing that you have helped your patients with?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so they come in and their hormones are out of whack, usually deficient in the three main areas.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Then you help replace them and that's what helps.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or is there, are there other pieces of this?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like I know hormones are not just like a blanket, they're not gonna fix everything, they're not magic, but it's a combination of that, and then what else are you helping your patients with?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it it that actually took a lot of deep diving for me when I first started because there's a lot of online platforms.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you just want hormones, you can go online and get them.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, my business is flourishing.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's there's there's more, there's more to that puzzle than just handing out a prescription and saying good luck to you.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Without a doubt, it's the the it's the understanding that this will be okay one way or the other.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll get we'll get through this together, whether we need to tweak the hormones or if this isn't working for you right now.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But also kind of, you know, to touch on a lot of the things that you preach, John.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how are you eating?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how are you sleeping?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes, I can help you fall asleep and help hopefully get you some restless sleep with the hormones, but what are your, you know, what are your habits in regards to sleep?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are your habits in regards to exercise?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Which gives you the bigger picture of you know, hormones are helpful, but if if you're not doing the work behind it, then there's more to just you know putting on your patch or your gel or your pill and um you know hoping that everything's gonna be fixed.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's there is the kind of digging, digging deep into personal habits.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and as we'll kind of talk about, it a lot of patients know what they should be doing, but they're not necessarily doing it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So uh but just just trying to get them to understand those healthy habits, but the first and foremost, getting them the energy to be able to actually do it.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the first session, first time we meet, it's all about we just have to get you feeling somewhat normal.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else will matter if I can't get your energy back.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we start kind of honing in on some of the other aspects that that's done that, you know, just to touch on what you're an expert on, Jum.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very interesting.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: What if a woman is in her 40s, 50s, and she's feeling pretty good, but she understands, like, okay, I should probably learn more about this.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are there things that are happening for people, even if they're not having these crazy symptoms, that they should be aware of?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know this was my experience when I came to see you.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I don't feel horrible, but I also want to make sure that I'm doing what I can.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Osteoporosis runs in my family.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I know that if I'm really low in my estrogen, that can impact that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I know that there's some other things like that.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say is something for women to understand, even if they're not having these crazy symptoms?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And your story is impactful, and I'm glad you mentioned that because osteoporosis and also uh cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's and dementia, these are huge with, I mean, all as we know, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: 70% of people or two-thirds of people with Alzheimer's and dementia are women.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: These are uh autoimmune conditions we know arise.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: 70% are women and they arise in midlife.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: These are conditions that start to happen, and there is an estrogen component, whether the researchers want to admit it or not.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, we had a large randomized control trial that was the women's health initiative.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of touched upon that during our first podcast.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt we'll ever get a trial that large again for women in hormones, unfortunately.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the data we get is observational, which professionals, scientists tend to poo-poo observational data, but unfortunately it's kind of all we have.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at Alzheimer's and dementia right now with hormones.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have very good evidence to show that starting estrogen therapy soon after menopause or before menopause decreases your risk of cardiovascular disease.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Rutterly important for women with a family history of cardiovascular disease or have early markers of cardiovascular disease.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Alzheimer's and dementia, we're currently doing trials on right now.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was an observational trial recently that showed that it did crease the risk for Alzheimer's and dementia, but we just need we need a little bit more data on that.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: But basically everything's pointing to that there's a correlation.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're just looking for a causation right now.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: But these are important aspects for people to take in consideration, knowing that the withdrawal of estrogen can cause a lot.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have estrogen receptors everywhere from that our follicles in our hair to the tips of our toes, where you get people get numbness and tingling in their toes, they lose their hair, they have skin issues, itchy ears, you know, you have, I mean, and literally it's it's everywhere, everywhere in your body.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the loss of estrogen can affect the way we metabolize.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a family history of diabetes, the loss of estrogen can make you more insulin resistant.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, as I said, it we have estrogen receptors on our mitochondria.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you are prone to fatigue or have autoimmune conditions, this could exacerbate it.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I try not to say that hormone therapy is the panacea and it's going to prevent all disease.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: We know that that's not true.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to do your due diligence as a healthy female, it is definitely worth looking into.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and another important aspect is that we know that estrogen as an anti-inflammatory uh directly affects our joints.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when that starts to withdraw or fluctuate in perimetopause, we have increased joint discomfort.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what could come from that joint discomfort is severe joint problems.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of midlife women know somebody that has frozen shoulder.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is battling something.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is like the plague of the midlife woman is the frozen shoulder.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: That can follow you for your entire life.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Having it's called adhesive capsulitis, where you know you have limited joint mobility in your shoulders, which is treatable with PT and proper orthopaedic management, but estrogen can have a huge preventative component to that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I see frozen shoulder in my family.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's scary.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have people that have limited mobility for the rest of their lives in their shoulder.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm sure people, some people listening to this podcast have some joint issues, and metopause hormone therapy can really, really help with that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have a big study I mentioned to you before.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dr.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Von der Wright actually piloted a big study and involved in musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of women probably just had some big aha moments that they should probably pay attention to their hormones, even if they're not having crazy mood swings or night sweats or anything.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like there, there's some big reasons to look into it other than just managing the symptoms that we hear about most often.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, another question that I have for you that I think um a lot of my listeners are curious about is you have cardiometabolic health as part of your practice.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what does that actually mean?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: And what do women need to understand about cardiometabolic health as we enter this stage of life or as we're in midlife?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I actually debated whether to put that up there, but I finally just said, you know what?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: If women have questions about what that is, that's great.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: They can come and ask me.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: It is the connection between insulin resistance and cardiovascular health.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Insulin resistance meaning diabetes, pre-diabetes, just high blood sugar that's traveling through your veins and your arteries that basically wreaks havoc on your system.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it is insidious uh as cardiovascular diseases, too, hypertension, high cholesterol, and uh to some extent, uh high blood glucose are all you have no symptoms until it's too late, until you're at the point where you are you are actively doing damage to your body.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I tell people when I when they come to me and they come back with either pre-diabetes, diabetes, or high cardiovascular risk.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Usually the two of those go hand in hand.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I say there's a large overlap between the both of those.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we turn things around uh with with hormones, diet exercise, lifestyle changes, um, you know, maybe GLP one, just trying to hone in, turn the ship around.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I was saying this is the chance to turn the ship around.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I tell them flat out, you just added years to your life.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you just added healthy, healthy years, as we know, you you know, the difference between health span and lifespan.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they they added healthy years to their life by decreasing their blood glucose, decreasing their um quote quote air quotes, bad cholesterol or LDL, um, and you know making and decreasing their risk for heart disease, decreasing their risk for metabolic syndrome.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, these are all keys that will just help women live longer, healthier lives.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So could put longevity up there.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: They basically mean the same thing.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I mean it's it's they they go hand in hand, but um I thought longevity was just too uh gimmicky.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I get that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that's kind of what I work on with with women.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want us to live not just long lives, but healthy lives.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: You and I are on the same page with that one.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's similar with the the hormones, like even if you are not feeling some of the symptoms of either diabetes or heart disease, it's still important to be proactive and make sure that you are meeting with the provider who's actually listening to you and validating you and doing the different tests and things like that.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess that leads me to my last question for you, which is how would you say to a woman who's like, I don't even know where to begin?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does being more proactive about my health mean?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And like, what should I, what should I pay attention to?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: What should I ask my doctor about?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where do I start?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm hoping more providers are getting on board with patients wanting to know their numbers.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain numbers that are important to track.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, a basic lipid profile is very important, but also knowing your apolipoprotein B or APO B, that's very important.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing your lipoprotein A, which is a genetic marker that is another lipid particle that is mostly genetically determined.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing what your A1C is, your hemoglobin A1C, these are tests that all can be run from your primary care.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And even if your hemoglobin A1C is normal, you should know what your fasting insulin is.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: How hard is your body working to keep your blood glucose at a normal level?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: People don't necessarily know that number.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Fasting insulin is what you need to know, especially if things are coming back normal.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: How close are you?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: How hard is your body working at this time?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing your inflammation, your high sensitivity C reactive protein, what's going on inside your body.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: High inflammation can come from gut issues, autoimmune conditions, stress, illness, dental caries, you know, things that are under that are treating, affecting your whole body that you might not be aware of.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't get them from your provider, I think I mentioned this in the first podcast, but you can go online and now purchase labs.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a different time now.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's it's it is a whole different world out there.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can get the labs that you want.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have tools, AI, for better or for worse.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have AI that can help you uh do a good interpretation of those labs, or go try to find a provider that will look at your labs and and in relation to you and your lifestyle.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So being an advocate for yourself, don't just let a provider say, I don't really test those things.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really think they matter.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is a consumer's world.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You need to go and get the tests that you need, get a bone density.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even if you have to pay out of pocket, get a bone density scan.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you stay up on your mammograms.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a family history of colon cancer or or anything of the similar, you make sure you get a colon oscillate.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You keep them on your preventative care.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't Don't wait for something bad to happen because unfortunately, like our current environment is sick care.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: So oftentimes providers don't have the time or the energy to treat well people.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to be our own advocates.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot be complacent anymore.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's our healthcare system doesn't allow for it.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like this is going to be really an eye-opening experience for a lot of women listening to this.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Joan, I just I have a couple questions I wanted to ask you.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have a wide variety of patients that come in.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I had a patient just this morning that came in that it's funny.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: She was she was almost um telling on herself.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she as she was telling me about her lifestyle, she told me what her breakfast was, but then she's like, and I know I'm not eating enough protein in in the morning.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then she told me what her what she used for lunch.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, I know I shouldn't be doing that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have been I know that that's not enough fiber.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and then snacking at night.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to her, I'm like, you know what you should be doing, but yet you're not.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So where where's the disconnect?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see that with your clients?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And how do you get them to connect?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, I'm laughing because I feel like I say this so many times till I'm blue in the face.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know what you need to do, and yet doing it consistently is not happening.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, where is that disconnect?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I hear this probably 10 times a day.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I know what I need to do, I just need to do it, or I need to get back on track, or I need to work on my consistency.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Or the worst is when they blame themselves.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I need to be more motivated, I need to be more disciplined, I need more willpower.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: And what we don't need as women in this stage of life is more guilt trips or any more shame or any more just like heaviness to put on ourselves.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: We already have a lot of that.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I do with my clients is to help them bridge that gap between knowing what to do, because we all have a pretty good understanding of it.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: And most of us are doing already some pretty great things for our health.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And yet there is a gap between what they want to do and the life they want to live and what their habits look like day in and day out.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: So closing that gap is really what I exist for.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so often what we start with is like, okay, baseline, what are you doing well right now?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's start there.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: And once you've identified, okay, I'm drinking some water and I'm walking my dog and you know, I try to get to bed on time, like that's a great start.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there we can build and really look at what's most important for you to be focusing on right now.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: But the problem is that trying to rely on motivation or discipline or willpower, none of those are reliable.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you're just gonna feel like you're constantly struggling because what you need are actually systems that fit into your life that become a habit.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And when something is a habit, it's autopilot.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not thinking about it, you're not stressing about it, it's just what you do.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: But there is time and intention that has to go into it before you get to that point where you just have those habits that support your healthy lifestyle.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the problem isn't a knowledge problem, it's an implementation problem.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so helping people really figure out how, so instead of searching for another workout plan or instead of searching for another diet that is they're gonna go all in and be like this all or nothing mindset, what they probably need is just to take what they already know and then figure out how to apply that inside their actual life so that they can create consistency, because consistency is what actually is going to help us create the life that we want.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it all comes back to those habits.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody knows what to do, but when life is busy, it's hard to figure out how to keep doing those things, like our fitness and our nutrition.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times we get overwhelmed with everything that's happening.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the things that are just for us tend to take a back burner when everybody else and everything else seems more urgent.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of us have spent just decades focusing on everybody else.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we come where it's like we're emerging in midlife.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're coming out of this, like, oh, wait, I'm an actual person with desires and hobbies.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like, wait, who am I?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I possibly get to the point where I am focusing on myself?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that you're neglecting anybody else, but your um health and your priorities do deserve to be on your list.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: They deserve a spot on your calendar as well as everything else that you're doing.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I love that.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love the smart start small because I mean that that is such a huge issue nowadays.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like we went from no information about midlife to everything about midlife.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now my patients are like I call it paralysis by analysis.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like they like, okay, I I I was told I'm supposed to do zone two and zone five workouts in or zone four, but I but what if I do zone three by accident?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that doesn't count?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, or you know, what if I didn't get 30 grams of fiber in one day?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that like, do I have to get like 40 the next?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like what are like and then they're like, I just don't eat fiber and I just come back to my Diet Cokes every day.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, that is I'm like, okay, we need to reboot this whole thing.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you with your clients like try to sift through this crazy world that we live in where you have a hundred people a day screaming at you, either TV, social media, everywhere, telling you the right way to be?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you how'd you manage that?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: All the shoulds.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, all the shoulds that we're shoulding all over ourselves.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that it's overwhelming, like drinking from a fire hose.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's telling us that you should do this and you should do this.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's overwhelming.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, you need to get clear on what actually is going to make a difference for you individually.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yes, I have people asking me all the time now, should I be taking creatine and should I be doing intermittent fasting and should I be doing sprint intervals on the bike and all this stuff?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we just get so overwhelmed that, like you said, we just go, never mind.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: I throw my hands up and I just quit.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go back to just living my sedentary lifestyle and drinking diet comes because that's oh, it is so, it's so much.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I think instead of looking at a giant list of things that you need to fix, let's first figure out what you're doing well, like I mentioned before.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then from there, what can we add on?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, what does your actual week look like?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's another really helpful question because a lot of people design their plan, their perfect plan for their perfect week.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't take into account that your kid's probably gonna get sick and your mom might need it to be taken to the doctor's appointment and your dog needs a walk, and you're like there's so many different things buying for our attention that is really important to figure out what needs your attention and then also look at the actual life that you're living and say realistically, what can I fit in?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so everybody's different.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Every woman's opportunity is different from what they're currently doing to what they could be doing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're already exercising consistently, you probably don't need more exercise.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: You probably don't need to get super nitty gritty on zones and different things like that.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're already lifting weights, awesome.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's move on to are you getting enough protein?
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's where I start with my clients.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Are you underfueling?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because most women are not getting enough.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: So what you don't need is more restriction.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times I talk to women and they're like, oh, I did so great today.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had a latte for breakfast and hardly ate anything until dinner time, fed my family a nice dinner.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it's probably my fault because I had a brownie after dinner.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, that's not the problem.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be making sure that you're eating enough throughout the day.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: So don't immediately jump to restricting yourself.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: We we need to get out of this diet mentality.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing that I see is that the lack of planning and preparation is oftentimes back to the systems problem.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily a knowledge problem.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: We know fiber is good and that protein, we need it and all these things.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have a system in place to, when you open your fridge, have something ready to eat for lunch, that's where your opportunity is to focus in on that.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think to answer your question, what should we be doing?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: First, we should really zoom out and take a big picture look at what we're already doing and then realize, like, okay, I'm doing some things okay.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's some room for improvement for sure.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: We all have room for improvement.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then choose one or two meaningful things that if you were to build a system around them, start to get yourself some wins in that area and then layer on from there, then you're looking at like a year or so.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you started adding things, baby steps on top of each other to get to the point where your health can look and your habits can look totally different today than they might a year from today.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I see what happens is we think with this all or nothing mindset and we think I have to overhaul everything right now.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so they say, next week, I'm gonna work out three days a week and I'm gonna eat protein every single day, and I'm not gonna get pizza, and I'm not gonna drink any more wine.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get to Wednesday and you have failed already.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so then you look at yourself and you add guilt and shame on top of you add those emotions to it, and then you throw in the towel and say, I'll just start again on Monday.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's our problem.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because in order to create consistency, what we have to get really good at is figuring out how to continue or how to just get right back on track instead of saying, Oh, never mind, I blew it, I'll wait until after the summer ends, or I'll wait until after the holidays end, and I'll get started and I'll do a hundred percent.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need a hundred percent.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: We need just little baby steps.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And over time, that's how you can actually create consistency and create the life that you really dream of living.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's wonderful.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is such a tough time in our lives because we're raising children, we're dealing with aging parents and giving ourselves the freedom to have that strength and that independence to be able to focus on ourselves and not feel guilty about it.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a constant battle.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I I feel, I don't know if you see that with your clients, I see it all the time with my patients.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you give your give them grace to have that independence and that strength?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's so important to create the life that you dream of.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I I do this exercise with my clients a lot where it's like, okay, let's just imagine 10 years from now.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that look like?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: How old are you?
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: How old are your kids?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe just what does your day-to-day look like?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times it's like, oh, I'll have more independence then.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have more freedom then.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it'll just be a lot more about me because I'm not as hands-on taking care of everybody else.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: I want to travel and I wanna play pickleball and maybe I want to garden or pick up a new hobby or whatever.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, what are you doing today to create that?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Taking time for yourself, putting on your own oxygen mask, it is for you, but it's also for everybody else that you come into contact with, whether they're your dependents or your parents or your coworkers, how you care for yourself and how you fill your bucket, it all spills over, right?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are currently saying, like, I just don't have time, or I need to focus on everybody else and everything else, and you're putting out fires at work and you're making sure that the house gets managed and all these things are important.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can't show up fully as you, as an independent person, as an individual, then you're actually not showing up 100% for everybody else because you are holding yourself back.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we want to feel strong and we want to have vitality and we want to create this independent future where we still have our mobility and our ability to do all the things that we want to do.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to get clear on what it looks like today in order to create that.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the older we get, the more we realize that that really is the truth.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like in our 20s and 30s, it was really easy to be like, ah, I can take off weeks from exercise and be a little weekend warrior and I'll probably be be fine.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or I might just not eat all day because I know I'm going out to a restaurant tonight.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you could get away with those things.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I think as we shift and we realize like the habits that we have today are actually creating the person that we will be in the future, it's it becomes a lot more apparent how important it is to fuel our body and support our body and strengthen our body, not just for the sake of losing weight or exercising or chasing a number on a scale or burning calories or whatever.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's to actually think about our future self decades from now and how do we want to show up as that future version of ourselves.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that's fantastic.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that you talk about the things you can't get away with now.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it you know, and I see that even my women in their early 40s to my women in their 50s.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's things you can get away with when you're just like maybe 42 that you cannot get away with when you're 52.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: Never mind, 62.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Even within our midlife range, there's still quite a bit of diligence that we need to pay attention to.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that's always so attractive about what you do, Joan, is I have patients every day that come to me.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I had one patient in particular I just talked to yesterday.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: She found me because she saw some of the symptoms on my website and she thought that they were related to her, but she's like, I just don't know.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: We talked, and I'm like, You are full-blown metapausal.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no there's no way to get around this.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she was kind of in shock about it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not looking at her labs, I'm just talking to about her symptoms.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Do you have friends?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you you must have people around you?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have people that you can talk to about this?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, to be able because this is this will go far beyond our session here.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: This this is something that's going to affect you, especially you know, she was perimetapausal.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to affect you for a decade or more.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: You need a support team.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I love what you do, Joan.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, because I find so often that women, midlife women, they need a support system.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: We we all go through this.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I hate to break this, even though I talk about my mother who claims to have never gone through menopause.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: But we all go through this.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we might not have the same story, but I can almost guarantee you there's the there are common threats amongst all of these.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, tell me, tell me more about like your thoughts on that.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I first think we're just not meant to do this life alone.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think so many of us are just caught up again in the in the day-to-day.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we have, we go from work to home to all of our responsibilities, and it's just, it's a lot.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we feel busy and we feel pulled in a million directions.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, I think some women feel isolated in what they're going through, whether it is symptoms of menopause or whether it's navigating empty nest hood for the first time, or a lot of our friendships kind of change.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like if, especially if we have children, a lot of times our friends were our kids' friends' moms.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so we would see them at the playground or, you know, at school pickup or drop-off.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just like this built-in part of our lives that created community.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of us don't have that anymore.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of us are working from home.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to be intentional with making sure that we feel like we are part of something bigger than ourselves and that we have a social network, even if it's just like one person.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: But we women, we need people.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: We need other women.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I know my husband says to me, You're all I need, babe.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, well, you're not all I need.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I love you too, but you are not all I need.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I need my women friends.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I need to say, my body's going crazy.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going crazy.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that in this stage of life, there's just so much transition, so many different transitions, but there is a huge social transition that happens in this stage of life.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also happening at the same time as an identity change, too.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're going from being so-and-so's mom or like the one who has dinner on the table and plans, you know, the fun vacations and things to like, okay, now my kids are gone or they're soon to be leaving.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: And my social networks have changed, like career might have been evolving or caretaking for your parents.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's just a lot.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think women start to wonder who am I?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I need something that is just mine, but I also want to connect with other women who get it.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I also want to have some fun things on my calendar so that I have plans and I want to have somebody to do these plans with.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I, in my opinion, community is not an extra or like a nice to have.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of our well-being.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need to feel connected.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like we need support.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: We need somebody to go to and just say, like, I need to vent for a moment.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and then also to have accountability with maybe some of these things like, oh, girl, you should probably go get that checked out.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like those sound like symptoms of menopause.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you should go.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, so sometimes we learn stuff just from having chit-chats with our friends that we might not have ever thought of before.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I build community intentionally into pretty much everything that I offer because I want women to be physically strong and able, but I also want them to have a friend that they could text or a place where they feel like they belong.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want them to have things on their calendar that they actually look forward to.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I want them to have part of their identity not necessarily be tied to what they do for everybody else, not just the mom role or the daughter role or the employee role or the neighbor role or the whatever, like just who are you and what brings you joy and how can you put some of those parts of you into your schedule so that they actually get done.
• 40:35
  unknown: Yeah.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the things that I offer include community, whether it's virtual offerings or in-person offerings, because a huge part, I think, of just being a well-rounded human, but especially a woman and especially in midlife, is again having that connection to other people who are also in the same stage of life.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding that we've all lost our BS filter.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's just part of it.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, friendships are even more important.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And somewhere, especially somewhere that you can just be 100% yourself and just say, like, oh, I'm really struggling, or you know, or celebrate me.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Look, this really great thing is happening in my life.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Come cheer me on.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that piece is missing for a lot of women too.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like a placed event and be real, but also a place where you can show up and someone can say, Wow, awesome job at that thing you did at work or whatever.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, cheer each other on.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Stephanie, that was fun for me to get to the answer some of your questions.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a question that I thought would be great for us as we're kind of wrapping up this episode for us to ask each other.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that question I would like to ask you if you could get women in midlife to stop overlooking one thing when it comes to taking care of their health, what would it be?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think there's a couple ones, but I'll focus on this one that we've kind of touched on it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not being complacent about feeling terrible.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not just assuming what I hear every day patients say, I I just thought it was due to aging.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought that I just, you know, feeling crappy all the time was just part of the aging process.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have every right to feel good, but there's nothing written in stone that says once you get close or near or after 50, that it's okay to feel like crap every day.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: So don't accept that.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Don't accept if a provider tells you that that's normal, go find another provider.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: That would be the one that I would I would really want women to take home.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I would so agree with that because that was my experience with the first doctor that I went to.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, honey, that's just getting older.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, thank you.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's not exactly I'm not gonna take that answer.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: I what do you think?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think that is an important aspect?
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would ask the question of the woman of what are you taking care of your health for?
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it's really easy to focus in on the numbers and the weight on the scale and calories and steps and even our lab numbers and have like almost blinders on to where you're just like hyper-focused on results.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And those can be helpful, but the ultimate goal, in my opinion, is to think about what do I want my life to look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now?
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do I want my body in the future?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: So, future me, what do I want my body to allow me to do?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want to still keep saying yes to the things that I love.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want women to stop chasing health for the sake of just being healthy or getting skinny or having a certain pant size.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And instead think about building their health so that they can become the grandma that is on the floor with her grandkids and the woman who's lifting her own suitcase into the overhead bin and the one who's also saying you just got mice.
• 43:59
  unknown: Yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: And like continuing to try new things.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's interesting too.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like we we want to create this life that we dream of in the future with all the people that we love in it.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: How do I want to feel as that future version of me?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And who do I want to be in my life?
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what can I do right now to start not just manifesting like wishing for it, but how can I start actually creating it?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts with the habits that we have today.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's excellent.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Stephanie.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we talked about so many pieces of midlife health today, from the hormone side and the medical side to our day-to-day habits with movement and nutrition and things like that.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I am just really excited to help women realize that they have a lot of power and that our bodies are changing and our lives are changing.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that we have to just feel crappy or stay stuck.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it also means that we can get rid of that list of shoulds and really begin to start looking at what really does matter for you and how can you be proactive in your life to feel better, look better, have great energy, and really just create this life that you're dreaming of.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so that actually is our perfect little segue.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: So Stephanie and I have been working together behind the scenes on an in-person event that we're excited to share with you.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: So if you live in the Seattle area, Stephanie and I are putting on an event on November 12th, and it's called Midlife Reimagined: Hormones, Health, and the Habits That Matter.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we are super excited to take this conversation and dive a little deeper from both sides of the midlife health, from the medical hormonal side, but also the everyday lifestyle side together.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: So Stephanie will at this event go a little deeper on what's actually happening inside our bodies and not just hormones, but overall health, like what to pay attention to and really how to be proactive about your long-term health.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then I will go deeper on what taking care of yourself actually looks like in this stage of life, between strength and nutrition, movement, recovery, and how you can take knowing what to do and turning that into actually following through with it, with habits and systems in your real life.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then also adding that support piece and that connection piece.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if that is something that you would like to learn more about, we'll put the link in the show notes.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm imagining is a room full of women who are all navigating the same stage of life, but who are coming together for an evening to learn and connect with each other.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll also have an opportunity for some QA with both myself and Stephanie at the end.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we would absolutely love to invite you to join us.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be November 12th, and you can learn all the details in our show notes below.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Stephanie, I cannot wait for this event.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else you want to say as we close out today?
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just I'm thrilled.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to get to talk to people.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Although I love talking to you, Joe.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I think we get energy from each other.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're meant to we're social creatures and I love talking to other women and love hearing their stories.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I know you do too.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I hope the women out there listening to this podcast, if you live locally, are able to come and just share your story.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I this has been really fun.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I I love hearing your perspective on midlife women.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this has been just so much fun.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you again for having me on.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And for those of you who are not local, um, I'm gonna put Stephanie's and um my own Instagram and you know, ways to stay connected and to feel like you have those resources to follow along as well.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we hope you had some good nuggets to take away.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully you understand a little bit better what's going on in your body and you have a little bit more clarity around what matters in this stage of life.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully you feel a little more empowered towards being proactive as you move forward in your health.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Stephanie and I are both here to support you, uh, whatever that might look like moving forward.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are local, we hope to see you on November 12th.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening, my friend.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, progress over perfection and consistency over intensity.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, keep growing, keep glowing, and bye for now.