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Hormones, Health, and Longevity: Dr. Shepherd's Guide to Navigating Your "Preseason" · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations that put a new spin on
0:15
Speaker 1: pretty This is pretty smart. Welcome back, Welcome back to
0:22
Speaker 1: pretty Smart.
0:23
Speaker 2: I missed you.
0:24
Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great week. I actually have
0:27
Speaker 1: been having a great week. I started working with an
0:30
Speaker 1: executive coach in March, and I have to be honest,
0:34
Speaker 1: at the beginning, I thought maybe this was a waste
0:37
Speaker 1: of money and a waste of time, and I stuck
0:40
Speaker 1: with it.
0:41
Speaker 2: I haven't been going weekly.
0:42
Speaker 1: I've been going either every two weeks or every three weeks,
0:46
Speaker 1: and I was getting like little bits and pieces from it,
0:48
Speaker 1: but honestly not like what I was hoping. And then
0:54
Speaker 1: over the last few weeks, I had such major breakthroughs
0:59
Speaker 1: and I feel like they're big enough that I want
1:03
Speaker 1: to do an episode about them. I'm going to talk
1:05
Speaker 1: more in depth, hopefully next week if I can get
1:08
Speaker 1: my shit together to write something. But I'm going to
1:11
Speaker 1: talk more in depth next week for sure, and then
1:14
Speaker 1: probably in a solo episode leading up to the new year,
1:16
Speaker 1: because you all know I always do like a very
1:20
Speaker 1: special New Year's episode with questions to ask yourself. And
1:24
Speaker 1: I love planning for the year ahead so that I
1:28
Speaker 1: can go into the year feeling strong and strategic and
1:32
Speaker 1: ready like heart, mind, body, you know, just ready. And
1:36
Speaker 1: I know so many of you are the exact same way.
1:39
Speaker 1: That New Year's episode is always one of our highest rated,
1:42
Speaker 1: so I think this year, if you're up for it,
1:45
Speaker 1: I want to do our New year planning together.
1:48
Speaker 2: I'm going to show you.
1:49
Speaker 1: The method that this executive coach taught me, and I've
1:53
Speaker 1: actually never used it before, but when she gave me
1:57
Speaker 1: the outline, I really like it. I'm starting to fill
1:59
Speaker 1: it out. And the reason I want to do it
2:01
Speaker 1: is because I'm gunning for some quantum leaps. I don't
2:06
Speaker 1: want little baby steps. Some years I think are for
2:09
Speaker 1: baby steps. This year, I want quantum leaps, and I
2:13
Speaker 1: want us to do it together. So in the New
2:16
Speaker 1: Year's episode, I'm going to walk us through the method
2:19
Speaker 1: that this coach gave me, and then I'll give you
2:21
Speaker 1: some personal examples. And I'm thinking of also probably like
2:26
Speaker 1: a very specific meditation. I have one in mind and
2:30
Speaker 1: a really amazing teacher in mind, So yeah, I'm excited
2:34
Speaker 1: for that.
2:36
Speaker 2: Anyways, if you can.
2:37
Speaker 1: Tell I'm amped up today, I didn't even drink that
2:41
Speaker 1: much coffee. It's all of my energy and excitement is
2:44
Speaker 1: internal right now and I just want to share it
2:47
Speaker 1: with you. So anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself, because
2:51
Speaker 1: that's not what today is about. Today we are diving
2:54
Speaker 1: into a topic that might seem like it belongs far
2:57
Speaker 1: in the future. We're talking hormone how health, paramenopause, and menopause.
3:02
Speaker 1: And if you're like, why are we talking about this, Danielle,
3:06
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you. I actually didn't really
3:08
Speaker 1: want to talk about this topic. I felt like it
3:11
Speaker 1: maybe wasn't a fit for pretty smart right now. And
3:15
Speaker 1: then I read my friend's book, and I have to
3:18
Speaker 1: tell you, I changed my mind pretty quickly. Our guest
3:24
Speaker 1: today is doctor Jessica Shepherd. She's an OBGYN and a
3:28
Speaker 1: women's health expert. She also happens to be my friend.
3:32
Speaker 1: Jess and I met when I was living in Chicago
3:36
Speaker 1: doing a morning show, and she would come on as
3:39
Speaker 1: our show's women's health expert, and she was just always
3:44
Speaker 1: so impressive. I had two cohosts, and every time she
3:48
Speaker 1: Jess would leave the studio we'd look at each.
3:49
Speaker 2: Other and be like, is she real? How does she
3:52
Speaker 2: do everything that she does?
3:55
Speaker 1: She's an athlete, like she runs, she works out, she
3:58
Speaker 1: has an amazing marriage, and she had just had her
4:02
Speaker 1: second child when I met her, and she had this
4:05
Speaker 1: huge career and did TV and donated her time and
4:10
Speaker 1: was just the kindest. It's like I almost felt like
4:13
Speaker 1: she was not human. And my co host and I
4:16
Speaker 1: would be like, WHOA is she real? So I just
4:20
Speaker 1: always really admired her, and she was just like you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: like you look around and you're like, that is a
4:26
Speaker 1: person of excellence.
4:27
Speaker 2: That's just how I always felt about her.
4:29
Speaker 1: And then I quit my job in Chicago and moved
4:32
Speaker 1: back to LA and we would stay in touch and
4:35
Speaker 1: like any time I would post a transition on Instagram,
4:39
Speaker 1: Jess would reach out to me and she would go
4:42
Speaker 1: out of her way. And then we saw each other
4:44
Speaker 1: a couple times when she came to LA for work,
4:47
Speaker 1: and eventually I had an audition at ET. I was
4:52
Speaker 1: filling in on Daily Pop. If you guys remember that show,
4:56
Speaker 1: and you know I've told the story on the podcast
5:00
Speaker 1: about how I eventually got a job at E but
5:03
Speaker 1: they had told me no so many times prior, and
5:07
Speaker 1: one of those times they told me no, it was
5:09
Speaker 1: this time. But I mean they didn't say like no outright,
5:12
Speaker 1: but they just like I came in. I filled in
5:16
Speaker 1: for Daily Pop, which was basically my audition, and then
5:18
Speaker 1: nothing ever happened. But here's what did happen. I filled
5:22
Speaker 1: in on Daily Pop. I posted some photos and then
5:25
Speaker 1: E posted some video clips on their page, and all
5:29
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I start getting tagged like hundreds of
5:33
Speaker 1: times by people women that I don't know on EA's page.
5:38
Speaker 2: And I was like, what is happening?
5:40
Speaker 1: And I looked at it and jess Doctor Jessica Shepherd
5:45
Speaker 1: had sent the clip to her network of women and
5:49
Speaker 1: friends and community and said to them, please go support
5:53
Speaker 1: my friend Danielle. I didn't ask her to do it.
5:56
Speaker 1: I didn't know she was going to do it. She
5:59
Speaker 1: just s poarted me out of the blue, from the goodness.
6:03
Speaker 2: Of her heart.
6:04
Speaker 1: And I share that story because one, I think it
6:08
Speaker 1: showcases the person that she is, but also it taught
6:12
Speaker 1: me how to better show up for people. And I
6:15
Speaker 1: think there's rare moments in life because I usually feel
6:18
Speaker 1: like I do try and show up for people, but
6:20
Speaker 1: there's moments in life where I'm like, WHOA, I could
6:24
Speaker 1: show up better And that was a moment because she
6:27
Speaker 1: taught me how to do it unprompted. It was so
6:31
Speaker 1: beautiful and it just has always been something that has
6:36
Speaker 1: stayed on my heart.
6:37
Speaker 2: You know.
6:38
Speaker 1: Well, fast forward, I'm in La. This happens. Jess moved
6:42
Speaker 1: to Dallas. She opened her own practice called Sanctum Med
6:45
Speaker 1: and Wellness, and she's been making huge waves in the
6:49
Speaker 1: world of women's health. Good Morning America considers her one
6:52
Speaker 1: of their go to medical experts. Women fly across the
6:55
Speaker 1: country to seek her guidance. At her practice in Dallas,
6:59
Speaker 1: and with all the patients that she was seeing, she
7:02
Speaker 1: noticed something that as women, we weren't talking about our
7:05
Speaker 1: hormonal health in the right way. We weren't talking about
7:08
Speaker 1: menopause and paramenopause in the right way, and ultimately that
7:12
Speaker 1: means we weren't talking about aging in the right way.
7:16
Speaker 2: So, just like Jess does, she decided to do something
7:19
Speaker 2: about it. To be the solution.
7:21
Speaker 1: She wrote a book titled Generation M which guides us
7:24
Speaker 1: all in reimagining paramenopause and menopause as a new beginning
7:29
Speaker 1: packed with opportunities for strength for health and for resilience,
7:34
Speaker 1: and those aren't just words. She has the data to
7:37
Speaker 1: back up her ideas. And while I like that idea,
7:41
Speaker 1: I'm also not approaching menopause. So I asked doctor Shepherd,
7:46
Speaker 1: why at thirty three should I care?
7:49
Speaker 2: This is what she.
7:49
Speaker 3: Said, menopause is a journey, not a race.
7:54
Speaker 2: Okay, so what does that mean?
7:56
Speaker 1: Well? Doctor Shepherd walks us through the preseason of ormenopause,
8:01
Speaker 1: explaining the profound roles of hormones in our health and
8:03
Speaker 1: the importance of muscle strength, and her insights on creating sustainable,
8:08
Speaker 1: longevity focused habits. Her philosophy, aging doesn't have to mean
8:14
Speaker 1: slowing down, but it should be a time to invest
8:16
Speaker 1: in ourselves and set the foundation for a thriving future.
8:20
Speaker 3: Forty percent of our lives are spent in the postman
8:23
Speaker 3: aponsal phase, and so you want to devote forty percent
8:26
Speaker 3: of your lifespan to being disparaged and feeling bad about yourself.
8:30
Speaker 1: Today, we're going to explore her advice on hormone health
8:32
Speaker 1: in general, especially HRT, which is hormone replacement therapy. I've
8:37
Speaker 1: heard about this for years, and she's debunking the myths
8:40
Speaker 1: that I've been confused about. She also shares at what
8:43
Speaker 1: age we should really start thinking about taking hormones, and
8:47
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, it's earlier than I expected.
8:49
Speaker 1: She also shares practical steps for building strength and how
8:53
Speaker 1: mindfulness can help us navigate life's transition with grace. Plus,
8:57
Speaker 1: she shares her personal secret to success. I had to
9:00
Speaker 1: ask her, as a person of excellence, like this, what
9:03
Speaker 1: is it? She says, it's a blend of resilience, early
9:07
Speaker 1: habit building, and what she calls evidence based lifestyle. And
9:12
Speaker 1: so if you're listening and you're interested in this, amazing,
9:15
Speaker 1: And if you're listening and you're like, Okay, maybe I'll
9:17
Speaker 1: just skip this episode. Don't thinking about our health early
9:23
Speaker 1: is a form of health insurance.
9:25
Speaker 2: It is our future.
9:27
Speaker 3: I challenge them, and I'm like, maybe it is right
9:30
Speaker 3: now as you're not saying that, But hit me up
9:31
Speaker 3: in the air and see what you think.
9:33
Speaker 1: Doctor Shepherd's approach is honestly inspiring and packed with practical
9:37
Speaker 1: advice for every age. So maybe grab a notebook for
9:41
Speaker 1: this one. Today's episode is all about harnessing the power
9:45
Speaker 1: of hormones, longevity, and rewriting the story of aging.
9:50
Speaker 2: Let's dive in.
9:56
Speaker 1: Doctor Shepherd, I can't believe I get to interview you
9:59
Speaker 1: for your book launch. This is so exciting. How do
10:02
Speaker 1: you feel having your baby out into the world.
10:04
Speaker 3: I know it's a baby buy a thousand paper cuts,
10:07
Speaker 3: but you know, I'm still so proud of it. It's
10:10
Speaker 3: the process. It's really taught me a journey of whether
10:14
Speaker 3: that's patience, moments of pain, exhaustion, and in the end
10:20
Speaker 3: being really able to showcase something that I'm very proud of.
10:24
Speaker 3: I think that is a very cathartic journey that I've
10:27
Speaker 3: had to really just like take every stage and journey
10:31
Speaker 3: through it.
10:32
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of the people that follow
10:34
Speaker 1: your work have been wanting and almost expecting a book
10:38
Speaker 1: from you for quite some time. I'm wondering why now
10:42
Speaker 1: felt like the right time for you.
10:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were so many different things that happened in
10:48
Speaker 3: my life when I got the book offer, like how
10:51
Speaker 3: I worked. You know, I used to work in a
10:53
Speaker 3: very traditional hospital setting, and I left that had my
10:56
Speaker 3: own practice. I had kind of launched more into the
11:00
Speaker 3: space of working with companies and how to deliver information,
11:04
Speaker 3: health information to a consumer and not very like high
11:07
Speaker 3: medicine type information, So that was a journey for me
11:11
Speaker 3: and really changing how I communicate with people. And right
11:14
Speaker 3: around that time is when I knew that in the
11:17
Speaker 3: next year or so, menopause im perimenopause would be like everything.
11:21
Speaker 1: I think when women in their thirties hear the word menopause,
11:26
Speaker 1: they think, Okay, that's decades away. I don't have to
11:28
Speaker 1: think about that yet. But in your book you say
11:32
Speaker 1: that it's really never too early to start thinking about it.
11:35
Speaker 1: And after reading your book, I'm looking at this in
11:39
Speaker 1: terms of like saving for retirement, Like you don't want
11:42
Speaker 1: to start thinking about it when you're sixty, you want
11:44
Speaker 1: to start earlier. What's the one thing you wish younger
11:48
Speaker 1: women knew about this stage of life that could change
11:51
Speaker 1: how we are going to prepare for it.
11:53
Speaker 3: I think the one thing that we and hopefully this
11:56
Speaker 3: book inspires that, is to really change how we see
11:59
Speaker 3: ourselves as we start to get older. And I think
12:03
Speaker 3: that this next chapter that we're approaching has never really
12:07
Speaker 3: been looked at as something that is heralding growth, maturity, wisdom.
12:12
Speaker 3: It's been oh, well, you're finished with your reproductive years,
12:15
Speaker 3: if that's what you were going to do if you
12:17
Speaker 3: had kids or not and now you're old, and you
12:21
Speaker 3: see that how that plays out in say, the workforce,
12:24
Speaker 3: in relationships, just in general in society. The age thing
12:29
Speaker 3: and then women was really kind of this combination that
12:34
Speaker 3: was not really appealing. And so I want to change
12:37
Speaker 3: that in how we have this ability to really narrate
12:39
Speaker 3: this next chapter of our lives in a way that
12:41
Speaker 3: can be so beautiful. And although yes, you will have
12:44
Speaker 3: symptoms and biologically your body's going through really funky sometimes,
12:49
Speaker 3: if you want to call it that a change, But
12:51
Speaker 3: just like anything in life, like when something is difficult
12:53
Speaker 3: or hard, that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't go
12:56
Speaker 3: through it in a way where you come out better
12:58
Speaker 3: on the other side. So why would we approach our
13:00
Speaker 3: life like that? Forty percent of our lives are spent
13:03
Speaker 3: in the postmenopausal phase, and so you want to devote
13:06
Speaker 3: forty percent of your lifespan to being disparaged and feeling
13:09
Speaker 3: bad about yourself and being miserable. I don't, So why
13:13
Speaker 3: not put that out into the universe.
13:15
Speaker 1: What would you say to someone in their thirties who
13:17
Speaker 1: says this just isn't relevant for me yet.
13:20
Speaker 3: I challenge them and I'm like it, maybe it is
13:23
Speaker 3: right now as you're not saying that, but hit me
13:24
Speaker 3: up in a year and see what you think. Yeah,
13:26
Speaker 3: you kind of nailed it when you talked about finances, right,
13:30
Speaker 3: So if you think of just from financial perspective, the
13:33
Speaker 3: four oh one K was never a thing until like
13:36
Speaker 3: maybe back in the seventies and when we had like
13:38
Speaker 3: Social Security and they started making that appropriate for us
13:42
Speaker 3: when we got older, because we never used to live
13:46
Speaker 3: that long, same kind of thing. Why would we not
13:49
Speaker 3: want our health to be impeccable or invest towards it
13:52
Speaker 3: for later if we don't expect it to be great.
13:56
Speaker 1: Well, in Generation M you actually compare menopause to a marathon,
14:00
Speaker 1: not a sprint, which I thought was a very simple
14:03
Speaker 1: and well put analogy. I'm thirty three, I turned thirty
14:08
Speaker 1: four in January. How can I be part of the
14:11
Speaker 1: marathon right now?
14:13
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think that's a great question because that goes
14:15
Speaker 3: to the thirty earl who's like, it's not quite for
14:17
Speaker 3: me yet. But the forties, I think we used to
14:21
Speaker 3: really push off menopause to like fifties, sixty seventies and
14:25
Speaker 3: forties is really when you start to go through the
14:27
Speaker 3: perimenopausal phase. And one thing that I've learned. We want
14:32
Speaker 3: to change habits, but changing habits is not easy, and
14:36
Speaker 3: so I want to give everyone the ability to do
14:39
Speaker 3: that over a timeframe that they can find the consistency
14:43
Speaker 3: that then becomes sustainable because they've created good habits.
14:47
Speaker 2: And that's what I.
14:47
Speaker 3: Would say to you is I was like, Okay, as
14:49
Speaker 3: you're starting to approach your forties, you could read Generation
14:53
Speaker 3: M and say, Okay, I know in my forties is
14:55
Speaker 3: really when I'm going to start. Even at thirty five,
14:57
Speaker 3: I'm going to start to see this shift in muscle
14:59
Speaker 3: mass that I may not visibly physically see. But now
15:02
Speaker 3: that I know that my muscles starting to decrease, what
15:05
Speaker 3: can I do to substantiate that. I'm going to start
15:08
Speaker 3: weight training and I may not be the best when
15:10
Speaker 3: I first start in my thirties, but by forties, I'm
15:12
Speaker 3: going to be strong as hell because I've been preparing
15:15
Speaker 3: for this from this time or my diet. Right this
15:18
Speaker 3: is probably one of the biggest things I would say
15:20
Speaker 3: that women in their forties and fifties know. Then your thirties,
15:24
Speaker 3: you're still like I can drink and you know, like
15:26
Speaker 3: the next day I feel pretty good, Like nothing's really bad,
15:29
Speaker 3: and then your forties you're like, what in the hail?
15:31
Speaker 3: You're like, I had a sip of tequila and my
15:34
Speaker 3: day is now ruined. So that's just literally the body's
15:37
Speaker 3: way of starting to metabolize differently. So even you knowing
15:42
Speaker 3: that in your thirties, you could be like, Okay, okay,
15:45
Speaker 3: when I start to not feel that great, maybe I
15:48
Speaker 3: need to dial down a bit. And I can do
15:49
Speaker 3: that over the course of a few years so that
15:51
Speaker 3: when I get to my fifties, I'm like, you know what,
15:54
Speaker 3: maybe I don't need to drink as much.
15:55
Speaker 1: Well, your book details how declining estrogen affects everything from
16:00
Speaker 1: brain function to bone health. I know that sounds simple.
16:03
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know that. What do you think women
16:06
Speaker 1: in their thirties should know about how their hormones are
16:09
Speaker 1: playing into their journey here?
16:12
Speaker 3: I think hormones in general, just as a category, as
16:15
Speaker 3: a topic, we should really actually give them a little
16:17
Speaker 3: bit more credit than we typically give them. And the
16:20
Speaker 3: reason why is because again we don't see it. You
16:23
Speaker 3: don't see hormones like every day and you're like, hey, hormone,
16:27
Speaker 3: But there's just strong chemical messengers and everyone has hormones,
16:32
Speaker 3: right but we don't really pay attention to them until
16:35
Speaker 3: they're not acting right. And so I think that the
16:38
Speaker 3: fact that we're understanding what they are and what happens
16:41
Speaker 3: when they're not acting in their best behavior, that we
16:45
Speaker 3: can pay attention to it. And I think that's the
16:46
Speaker 3: body awareness that I also think is important. Through the book.
16:49
Speaker 3: You may have shifts here and there, and that's again
16:52
Speaker 3: coming into yourself and really knowing what's going on. You
16:56
Speaker 3: may not need anything at all, you may not need
16:58
Speaker 3: a medication or a change in anything, but you're aware
17:02
Speaker 3: and the awareness is only going to make you better
17:04
Speaker 3: for when you're in your forties and you really do
17:06
Speaker 3: start to see actually more of a shift. And so
17:09
Speaker 3: I think that that's important to start that conversation with yourself.
17:12
Speaker 1: Now, is there anything women in their thirties can actually
17:16
Speaker 1: a habit that you would suggest that we adopt right
17:19
Speaker 1: now that our future selves are perimenopause and menopause selves
17:22
Speaker 1: would say thank you for.
17:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would definitely say being strong. You know, when
17:27
Speaker 3: we think of all the organs in our body that
17:30
Speaker 3: can really create the best version of ourselves in our
17:33
Speaker 3: seventies and eighties is muscle. And I really attribute that
17:37
Speaker 3: to the ability of us being able to have good
17:40
Speaker 3: form posture balance. If you think of like a nursing home, right,
17:45
Speaker 3: most people who are in a nursing home is because
17:48
Speaker 3: they don't have functionality. People usually are in a nursing
17:51
Speaker 3: home because they can't stand up, They can't function in
17:54
Speaker 3: their home by themselves. They need someone to watch them
17:56
Speaker 3: assist them. And a lot of that, I would say
17:59
Speaker 3: in the up the upper eightieth percentile has to do
18:02
Speaker 3: with because their muscles are weak. But women actually take
18:06
Speaker 3: another hit on kind of muscular strength and the ability
18:09
Speaker 3: and power because we have that decline and estrogen, and
18:13
Speaker 3: the decline and estrogen affects our muscle mass, and so
18:17
Speaker 3: it's kind of like we get a double whammy when
18:19
Speaker 3: you're aging and your muscle mass decreases just biologically, but
18:22
Speaker 3: when that estrogen kind of trails off, that also contributes
18:25
Speaker 3: to our muscle. So if I would say there is
18:27
Speaker 3: one thing is to really focus on, how can I
18:30
Speaker 3: improve my strength through weight training resistance training, because muscle
18:37
Speaker 3: is everything. It's our longevity muscle, it's our longevity organ Rather.
18:41
Speaker 1: I mean, you practice that and you've taught you talked
18:44
Speaker 1: about it in your book too, like how your workouts
18:47
Speaker 1: and your fitness have really up leveled your life.
18:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I feel the difference too. I would definitely say,
18:54
Speaker 3: like just the ability to have strength when you are
18:58
Speaker 3: doing certain things is that I've been able to be
19:01
Speaker 3: appreciative to the work that I've done on myself and
19:05
Speaker 3: seeing that outcome now. And I really wouldn't be able
19:09
Speaker 3: to say that if I actually didn't take I would
19:11
Speaker 3: say maybe about four years ago and I really shifted
19:15
Speaker 3: into more weight training than ever before in my life
19:18
Speaker 3: because I used to do a good combo of car.
19:21
Speaker 3: I was very cardio heavy in my twenties, like running
19:23
Speaker 3: half marathons, doing a lot of jogging. That was my thing.
19:26
Speaker 3: Then I started incorporating weight training. But now it's shifted.
19:29
Speaker 3: It's mostly weight training and a touch of cardio, and
19:32
Speaker 3: that I can say, I've definitely seen the difference.
19:35
Speaker 1: Are there any nutritional or dietary habits that you think
19:40
Speaker 1: can support our long term hormonal health?
19:43
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think we have estrogen receptors all over our body.
19:47
Speaker 3: That's one of my most favorite things to tell women
19:50
Speaker 3: is because we've kind of like typecast them, you know,
19:53
Speaker 3: like I like to talk and screenplay like I'm a director,
19:56
Speaker 3: and estrogen always used to be like just for the pelvis,
19:58
Speaker 3: it only has to do with reproduction, it only has
20:01
Speaker 3: to do with cycles, and that's not true at all.
20:04
Speaker 3: You have estrogen receptors all over your body and your brain,
20:06
Speaker 3: your bone, your muscle, your heart, And so when you
20:09
Speaker 3: see that the chemical messenger is not being sent to
20:12
Speaker 3: these lovely organs as we go through perimenopause, then that's
20:16
Speaker 3: why you start to see the dysfunction in Now we
20:18
Speaker 3: have increased in dementia, heart disease, loser muscle mass, bones,
20:23
Speaker 3: we have osteoporosis. So when it comes to diet one,
20:27
Speaker 3: I look at in two different things. What are you
20:29
Speaker 3: going to be that's fueling your body in a different
20:31
Speaker 3: way and decreasing the glucose, and that is again decreasing
20:34
Speaker 3: our carbohydrate intake and if you take in carbohydrates to
20:38
Speaker 3: make it more complex, but protein substantiating our protein intake
20:42
Speaker 3: so that it's there to help with building muscle. And
20:45
Speaker 3: then fiber is also a big part of that as well,
20:48
Speaker 3: because we start to see shifts in how our gut functions,
20:51
Speaker 3: but also our lipids start to increase, and fiber is
20:54
Speaker 3: a great way to kind of keep those lipid levels down,
20:57
Speaker 3: your triglycerides and things like that. If you want to
21:00
Speaker 3: contextually look at a diet that's helpful is the Mediterranean diet.
21:04
Speaker 3: That's probably the best kind of posit of what a
21:08
Speaker 3: diet could look like.
21:09
Speaker 1: A few years ago, I was preparing for an interview
21:12
Speaker 1: with Maria Striver on Alzheimer's and I read something that
21:18
Speaker 1: completely stopped me in my tracks that women are at
21:21
Speaker 1: a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and stress in midlife,
21:26
Speaker 1: and hormones and hormonal changes and stress on the brain
21:30
Speaker 1: are a major contributing factor to that. When I was
21:35
Speaker 1: reading about mindfulness and the holistic approach to wellness that
21:39
Speaker 1: you take in the book, I was wondering if there's
21:42
Speaker 1: a connection to stress management in your thirties and then
21:45
Speaker 1: a transition that's easier or harder into perimenopause and menopause.
21:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish if there was one thing that I
21:53
Speaker 3: wish I knew in my thirties that I didn't know
21:56
Speaker 3: in my forties, was really looking at that mindfulness part.
22:00
Speaker 3: You know a lot of people are like, Oh, that's
22:01
Speaker 3: so woo woo, and I'm not doing that. And what
22:04
Speaker 3: we have seen actually in evidence but also just in
22:07
Speaker 3: practice from a personal perspective on how my life change
22:12
Speaker 3: is being able to create calm in a moment of chaos.
22:16
Speaker 3: And what you start to see biologically is that women
22:19
Speaker 3: going through perimenopause in their forties, because of the shifts
22:22
Speaker 3: and hormones, it impacts our neurotransmitters, and that's when you
22:25
Speaker 3: do start to actually see an increase usually because of stress,
22:29
Speaker 3: but also because of hormones anxiety depression. You have a
22:33
Speaker 3: sandwich generation for women usually in their forties taking care
22:35
Speaker 3: of older parents and then they have kids as well,
22:38
Speaker 3: and so that increases the stressors. But then also you
22:41
Speaker 3: have the shift and the hormones, and so you have
22:43
Speaker 3: this like really flux going on in your brain where
22:46
Speaker 3: the mind body is like what the hell is going on?
22:49
Speaker 3: And so that's why I say hormones are good because
22:51
Speaker 3: it can help stabilize the hormones and decrease those things
22:54
Speaker 3: that are occurring. But also I would really encourage anyone
22:59
Speaker 3: who's listening that mindfulness practices are so so helpful for
23:04
Speaker 3: when you're going through those moments to have another tool
23:07
Speaker 3: set in order to help yourself that you may not
23:11
Speaker 3: need medication for, but if you are on medication, it
23:13
Speaker 3: can still help you. It's always that thing that can
23:15
Speaker 3: help you, whether you take hormones or not, whether you
23:17
Speaker 3: take medication or not, is having these modalities to quiet
23:21
Speaker 3: the mind and learn how to come out of an
23:24
Speaker 3: actual situation. You can be in the most chaotic thing
23:26
Speaker 3: and still be meditating.
23:28
Speaker 2: Is your sleep affected during perimenopause?
23:31
Speaker 3: It is, And that's one thing that I struggle with still.
23:35
Speaker 3: It's not easy to necessarily fix, but it is very
23:39
Speaker 3: easy to obviously know what's going on right because who
23:43
Speaker 3: is like who would notice if their sleep wasn't on point?
23:47
Speaker 3: So when those things start to happen, I think sleep
23:49
Speaker 3: is one of the most important things that you should
23:51
Speaker 3: try to restore. If you were having sleep disturbances, it
23:54
Speaker 3: is very common that it could be because of the
23:56
Speaker 3: perimenopause phase. But if it is happening, don't ignore. And
24:00
Speaker 3: there's two reasons why I would say that. Is one, sleep,
24:04
Speaker 3: When you lose sleep, it actually contributes down the road
24:08
Speaker 3: to chronic diseases such as hypertension and type two diabetes,
24:12
Speaker 3: and also obesity. But sleep really is the timeframe where
24:16
Speaker 3: our brain can rest and grow because it's a recovery
24:20
Speaker 3: state for our brain, and so if we don't treat
24:22
Speaker 3: our brain well, that our brain later down the road
24:26
Speaker 3: is like, well, I'm tired. You never let me sleep, right,
24:29
Speaker 3: So I think it's okay to give your brain a
24:32
Speaker 3: break because it needs it. I actually usually am wearing
24:34
Speaker 3: a loop, but I use that to kind of help
24:37
Speaker 3: me see what quality of sleep I'm getting. And then
24:40
Speaker 3: there's ways obviously to help with sleep and restoring sleep too.
24:44
Speaker 1: One of the things that I think is so important
24:46
Speaker 1: that your book talks about are like all of these
24:49
Speaker 1: symptoms that you could just sort of write off as
24:53
Speaker 1: other things, Like you could say, my sleep is weird,
24:56
Speaker 1: but I'm really.
24:56
Speaker 2: Stressed at work.
24:57
Speaker 1: How do you, as a self do diagnosis recognize Okay,
25:01
Speaker 1: this actually may be because of perimenopause.
25:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is very important for healthcare providers. This is
25:07
Speaker 3: where I think it's our responsibility to really take a
25:10
Speaker 3: step back and say, well, yes, I do know that
25:13
Speaker 3: there are a lot of symptoms that can be contributed
25:15
Speaker 3: to by perimenopause, but I also don't want to ignore
25:19
Speaker 3: things that could be causing it outside of the perimenopause.
25:22
Speaker 3: Experience and so well, that is a healthcare provider, real
25:26
Speaker 3: big responsibility and not kind of just like type casting
25:29
Speaker 3: something to me like yeah, that's perimenopausal. The other thing
25:31
Speaker 3: that I would say is in being empowered in the
25:34
Speaker 3: person that you are, is also to take a step
25:37
Speaker 3: and look at your life. There are many things that
25:39
Speaker 3: happen in our lives from our career, lose a job,
25:43
Speaker 3: or maybe it's pregnancy, maybe you had a miscarriage, maybe
25:46
Speaker 3: we had a divorce, like all of these different things
25:48
Speaker 3: actually do play a big number on our minds. But
25:52
Speaker 3: a lot of times we ignore these occurrences that happen
25:55
Speaker 3: in life that we are told are everyday things and
25:58
Speaker 3: we should get over it or keep going. And we
26:01
Speaker 3: actually store these things inside and they reveal themselves sometimes physically.
26:06
Speaker 3: And I really do think the body holds score. So
26:08
Speaker 3: things that have happened early in our lives and how
26:11
Speaker 3: they manifest in our body really does have a way
26:15
Speaker 3: of showing up. But if you're not aware of it,
26:17
Speaker 3: or you're not looking for it or paying attention to it,
26:20
Speaker 3: a lot of times you just think it's an illness.
26:22
Speaker 3: It's just it has to be diagnosed, and it has
26:24
Speaker 3: to be this physical ailment, and a lot of times
26:27
Speaker 3: it's our mind and we need to pay attention more
26:30
Speaker 3: to our mind than ever before.
26:32
Speaker 2: So you call paramenopause the preseason.
26:34
Speaker 1: Yes, I feel like I don't even know what game
26:37
Speaker 1: I'm playing yet.
26:41
Speaker 2: Can you explain what this stage is?
26:44
Speaker 3: Like?
26:44
Speaker 2: What symptoms do I even look out for?
26:47
Speaker 3: Yeah? So symptoms that typically that I would say, like
26:49
Speaker 3: the most common are you feel a hot flash here
26:52
Speaker 3: there You're like, did I just like fan myself because
26:55
Speaker 3: I'm hot? And then you may not have one again,
26:57
Speaker 3: or you may have one like three months down the road.
27:00
Speaker 3: Leap disturbances is big, I would say, definitely, like brain fog.
27:04
Speaker 3: So that moment where you're like, am I starting to
27:06
Speaker 3: forget things? Is kind of like this thing that I
27:10
Speaker 3: hear that happens most that well. Probably my first and
27:14
Speaker 3: most obvious perimenopausal signed for me was the brain fog,
27:17
Speaker 3: So I call it like the executive function room was
27:20
Speaker 3: a little off, like multitasking, memory, like all these different things.
27:25
Speaker 3: I'm like, I am not functioning on the high level
27:28
Speaker 3: that I know I could before in the past, And
27:31
Speaker 3: that was my.
27:31
Speaker 2: Care That must have been maddening for you.
27:34
Speaker 3: I was so frustrated because I was like, what in
27:37
Speaker 3: Because you know your routine. You're like, I know I
27:39
Speaker 3: can do this, this, a little bit of that, and
27:41
Speaker 3: then I'll do this and that. And then I was
27:43
Speaker 3: not doing that, and I was like, somebody help. I
27:47
Speaker 3: made myself a patient. I really just sat down and
27:49
Speaker 3: thought about it, and I was like, oh my god, Jessica,
27:53
Speaker 3: this is probably brain fog. And I did go get help,
27:56
Speaker 3: and I put myself on hormones.
27:58
Speaker 2: Wait, you put yourself on hormones for paramenopause.
28:01
Speaker 3: Yeah?
28:02
Speaker 2: Wow, what did you put yourself on? Are you allowed
28:04
Speaker 2: to share? Yeah?
28:05
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm such an open book. I started on estrogen.
28:09
Speaker 3: I have a form of progesterone because I do have
28:11
Speaker 3: an IUD that has progesterone in it, So that is
28:14
Speaker 3: kind of like my protection against estrogen because you have
28:17
Speaker 3: to take both of them. So I have the progesterone IUD,
28:21
Speaker 3: I take estrogen, and I take testosterone.
28:24
Speaker 1: I've heard so many different opinions on hormone replacement therapy,
28:28
Speaker 1: which some people will call HRT. My mom gave me
28:32
Speaker 1: permission to share this, but thanks me are like, yeah,
28:36
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you.
28:37
Speaker 2: Deanna.
28:37
Speaker 1: She's a very holistic person. And so like doesn't even
28:42
Speaker 1: want to take a tile and all if she doesn't
28:44
Speaker 1: have to. And she's sixty three. So when she was
28:49
Speaker 1: going through menopause, HRT was still kind of had had
28:54
Speaker 1: conflicting information and so she decided not to do it.
28:57
Speaker 2: Some of her girlfriends decided to do it.
29:00
Speaker 1: And now the research has been really positive for HRT
29:05
Speaker 1: and she's a little bummed because some of her girlfriends
29:07
Speaker 1: had really positive results. But she went to a holistic
29:12
Speaker 1: practitioner who actually did put her on a few hormones. Now, yeah,
29:18
Speaker 1: which like the research previously was like, you shouldn't do
29:22
Speaker 1: HRT after you've been in menopause, but they figured out
29:26
Speaker 1: a concoction that works. Where do you stand on HRT
29:30
Speaker 1: and when should women even be considering it?
29:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have changed so much from that study. When
29:36
Speaker 3: your mom is probably very very familiar with her is
29:39
Speaker 3: twenty years ago and she would have been writing in
29:41
Speaker 3: that timeframe. But that study that we now know that
29:44
Speaker 3: there's so much more benefit to hormone replacement therapy than
29:47
Speaker 3: that study was. It was a flawed study and there
29:49
Speaker 3: were things that we now know that shouldn't have been done.
29:52
Speaker 3: And now we can actually do things that are helpful.
29:55
Speaker 3: Some of those helpful things would include, we can start
29:57
Speaker 3: hormone replacement therapy before you actually get to menopause. Before
30:01
Speaker 3: when I was training, you had to wait till a
30:03
Speaker 3: woman was like, I have not had a period for
30:05
Speaker 3: twelve months consecutively. Then we would be like, oh, your menopausal,
30:09
Speaker 3: and now I can treat you with hormones. Now, many
30:13
Speaker 3: perimenopausal women who still have their cycles going through the
30:16
Speaker 3: fluctuation of hormones can start on hormone The best analogy
30:20
Speaker 3: I can give is if you have a car that
30:23
Speaker 3: is full of gas, would you wait till it's completely
30:26
Speaker 3: empty and you're literally like going nowhere for you'd be like,
30:29
Speaker 3: you know what, let me go ahead and put a
30:30
Speaker 3: few gallons in here. Or would you start to think
30:33
Speaker 3: about it and maybe address the situation when the yellow
30:35
Speaker 3: light is coming on, saying, hey, tanks kind of running
30:38
Speaker 3: a little low, maybe you should fill up. It's the
30:40
Speaker 3: same thing with hormones. I always say, hormones are not medications.
30:44
Speaker 3: They are hormones, which is what your body already had.
30:47
Speaker 3: And what we're trying to do with hormone replacement therapy
30:50
Speaker 3: is really get you a buffer and just this nice,
30:53
Speaker 3: steady amount of hormones so you can feel better. But
30:56
Speaker 3: it's also helping your body function in the way that
30:59
Speaker 3: it had when it had hormones. So it's not like
31:02
Speaker 3: we're making a medication and we're like, oh, we're kind
31:04
Speaker 3: of fixing this. We're actually creating and mimicking the same
31:08
Speaker 3: chemical formulary of what your hormone looks like in your
31:11
Speaker 3: body and giving it back. And I think that changes
31:14
Speaker 3: the game because it does sound like a medication, but
31:18
Speaker 3: it's really not. We're just kind of we're just kind
31:20
Speaker 3: of putting some water on the plant so it doesn't
31:22
Speaker 3: dry out. How about that?
31:24
Speaker 2: And relieving some of these symptoms. I mean, brain fog
31:27
Speaker 2: seems pretty horrible.
31:29
Speaker 1: You've had so many conversations with experts and then real
31:33
Speaker 1: women in your practice about paramenopause and menopause. I'm wondering,
31:38
Speaker 1: what's the most surprising thing you've learned from your conversations
31:41
Speaker 1: with these experts and real women that almost made you
31:44
Speaker 1: rethink your approach to menopause.
31:47
Speaker 3: I think that it came with again from the way
31:50
Speaker 3: I classically trained, which was, you know, hormones are not
31:53
Speaker 3: necessarily great, they're bad. You can only take it a
31:55
Speaker 3: certain amount of time to actually seeing how it changes.
32:00
Speaker 3: Is the ability for a woman to live her life,
32:03
Speaker 3: the quality of life that she can have, and also
32:06
Speaker 3: function functionality, Like we have so many studies now that
32:09
Speaker 3: show really how hormone replacement therapy or weightlifting or changing
32:13
Speaker 3: your diet really has such an impact on your life later.
32:18
Speaker 3: And I always say it's more about well span. We're
32:21
Speaker 3: all going to age unfortunately, but as we age, how
32:26
Speaker 3: do you want to show up in your seventies, eighties, nineties,
32:29
Speaker 3: even now one hundreds, And we literally are at this
32:32
Speaker 3: time in our lives where we get to choose how
32:36
Speaker 3: we would like to do that. Does it require work? Yes?
32:41
Speaker 3: Is it always easy? No? Do we have great tools yes?
32:45
Speaker 3: And so it really comes again with this ability to inspire.
32:50
Speaker 3: I'm going to be like eighty, like being able to
32:52
Speaker 3: travel and I can carry my own luggage and i
32:54
Speaker 3: don't need the wheelchair to take me to the plane
32:57
Speaker 3: because I've worked on it and I've done the things
32:59
Speaker 3: now that are going to make me my best version
33:01
Speaker 3: of myselves.
33:02
Speaker 1: In that next chapter, that's so inspiring to hear. I
33:05
Speaker 1: feel the same way. What do you think is something
33:08
Speaker 1: that gets passed around as good advice but makes you cringe.
33:12
Speaker 3: Oh self care. Self care. I hear it so often
33:19
Speaker 3: and I like to just take a step back when
33:21
Speaker 3: I hear it to kind of hear how people are
33:22
Speaker 3: going to answer, because one, I'm not going to, you know,
33:24
Speaker 3: judge you on what you think self care is for
33:27
Speaker 3: me personally. What I have seen and a lot of
33:29
Speaker 3: experts that I've talked to, especially for women, is mental
33:33
Speaker 3: health and mental wellness, having agency, using the tools that
33:37
Speaker 3: you get through, whether that's through therapy or just really
33:40
Speaker 3: diving down into how we navigate our lives. I still
33:44
Speaker 3: think women, again, we're not given the best resources in
33:49
Speaker 3: economy and society to be the best version of ourselves,
33:53
Speaker 3: and we're always fighting, Like I feel like we're always
33:55
Speaker 3: fighting for healthcare, We're always fighting to be seen to,
33:58
Speaker 3: you know, make the same wages that it's like across
34:01
Speaker 3: the board. There's always like these obstacles put in our way,
34:04
Speaker 3: and I really think that that plays a lot on
34:07
Speaker 3: our mentality, and I think because we haven't paid attention
34:11
Speaker 3: to it, it actually still creates these gaps because we're
34:15
Speaker 3: not actually aware of where we are in our space
34:18
Speaker 3: and our own journey, and there's so many things out
34:21
Speaker 3: there that have created these facades of who we should be.
34:25
Speaker 3: And I think unless you take a step back and
34:27
Speaker 3: really focus on your journey and boundaries, setting boundaries, knowing
34:32
Speaker 3: who you are, not allowing people to dictate what your
34:35
Speaker 3: path should look like. That's where I love self care
34:38
Speaker 3: because that takes time, because there's so many pathways that
34:41
Speaker 3: have been told to us when we were little girls,
34:44
Speaker 3: and to undo all of that, that's where I would
34:47
Speaker 3: say requires the most self care that I can ever
34:50
Speaker 3: want someone to do for themselves.
34:52
Speaker 1: Your book is packed with so many practical tips too,
34:55
Speaker 1: for women juggling careers and families and social lives. What
34:59
Speaker 1: was chapter that was the most fun to write and
35:02
Speaker 1: what was the chapter that was the most challenging to write?
35:05
Speaker 3: The most challenging Actually was the ABC's of HRT because
35:08
Speaker 3: it is so controversial. We are really at like kind
35:11
Speaker 3: of like the beginnings of where we can go and
35:14
Speaker 3: hormone replacement therapy because of that flawed study twenty years ago,
35:18
Speaker 3: and we're just coming out of the clouds from that,
35:20
Speaker 3: and so I had to be really careful. I had
35:23
Speaker 3: to be really insightful and have to take a very
35:27
Speaker 3: heavy topic that was quite frankly, very scary and allow
35:31
Speaker 3: women to say, ooh, okay, okay, I can understand this,
35:36
Speaker 3: this makes sense, and now I can actually understand it
35:39
Speaker 3: enough to know what I may want. In the HRT category,
35:43
Speaker 3: you do not as much as an advocate of as
35:45
Speaker 3: I am for HRT. I also will not shame a
35:48
Speaker 3: woman if she doesn't decide to take it right. The
35:51
Speaker 3: easiest chapter for me was at the beginning and trying
35:54
Speaker 3: to set the stage in the intro of who I
35:57
Speaker 3: am and why I wanted to create Generation and As
36:02
Speaker 3: this community for women, because it can be a scary topic.
36:05
Speaker 3: It can be very you know, if I took it
36:08
Speaker 3: from a purely medical approach, could be again the conversation
36:12
Speaker 3: I could pass all of the readers. I could give
36:14
Speaker 3: you as much jargon and terminology as much as possible,
36:18
Speaker 3: But if I'm not making that connection, then we're not
36:21
Speaker 3: getting anywhere. And that was for me substantially writing this
36:25
Speaker 3: book is saying I want people from the time that
36:27
Speaker 3: they open this book to be able to connect, and
36:29
Speaker 3: so for that I had to reveal a little bit
36:32
Speaker 3: of who I was, why I feel this way, why
36:35
Speaker 3: I think that this book was relevant and for why
36:37
Speaker 3: it was for right now, and so for me it
36:40
Speaker 3: was kind of like the fun part of it because
36:42
Speaker 3: I'm like, I want people to know a little bit
36:43
Speaker 3: more about me in a non medical way, and so
36:46
Speaker 3: I had to give up a little bit of like
36:48
Speaker 3: the tea.
36:49
Speaker 1: It's hard when your career has been about practicing, making
36:53
Speaker 1: it about the other person, to have to flip the
36:55
Speaker 1: script all of a sudden. It's more challenging than I
36:58
Speaker 1: think people would understand or know.
37:01
Speaker 3: It is challenging. And then at the end, you know,
37:03
Speaker 3: I always people are like, oh, I brought the audio
37:05
Speaker 3: version of your book, which I did read, but that
37:08
Speaker 3: was actually the first time that I read the book
37:11
Speaker 3: all the way through on my own, and I really
37:13
Speaker 3: got to hear the words and let them sit. And
37:17
Speaker 3: that for me was like one of the best parts
37:19
Speaker 3: of the experience is because I got to really see
37:22
Speaker 3: it for the work that it was and not just
37:26
Speaker 3: chapters here and there in pages.
37:28
Speaker 1: Holistically, yeah, well, if people look at your Instagram, they'll
37:32
Speaker 1: know that you're also a mom on top of the
37:35
Speaker 1: other many titles that you hold. I think you model
37:38
Speaker 1: you're an expander for me and my life because you
37:41
Speaker 1: model a holistic life. You have really healthy habits and
37:45
Speaker 1: self care practices. I'm wondering if you have any advice
37:50
Speaker 1: for the women that are listening are usually around my age.
37:54
Speaker 1: Do you have any advice for me and our listeners
37:58
Speaker 1: about how to achieve sort of this whole balistic well
38:01
Speaker 1: being that you've I think so uniquely managed to achieve.
38:04
Speaker 3: Thank you for that, and especially you know, knowing you
38:07
Speaker 3: so long, you knew me when I had just had
38:10
Speaker 3: my second child.
38:12
Speaker 1: No one would ever know because you walked into the
38:14
Speaker 1: set on a set with a six pack still but okay,
38:18
Speaker 1: sure we could pretend you just had a baby.
38:22
Speaker 3: But I remember, you know, those phases which were very hard.
38:25
Speaker 3: You know, the first few years of raising a child
38:28
Speaker 3: is probably the hardest because it's a lot of hands
38:30
Speaker 3: on deck. And I think that him being nine now
38:32
Speaker 3: and you see me from you know, when he was born,
38:36
Speaker 3: is that I had to understand that you still have
38:38
Speaker 3: the intention of who you want to be, right, And
38:42
Speaker 3: I think society tries to strip that from us as
38:45
Speaker 3: you build families or you start to have kids. And
38:48
Speaker 3: I would definitely say for women who are your age
38:52
Speaker 3: is to never let go of that. Sometimes can it
38:54
Speaker 3: be a little halted, but looking back on it, you know,
38:57
Speaker 3: when you're eighty, it is being like, yeah, you know,
38:59
Speaker 3: maybe took off two years or four years a little
39:02
Speaker 3: bit lighter to take care of kids, and then I
39:03
Speaker 3: went full force back into it. I would definitely say,
39:06
Speaker 3: do not let your dreams get disrupted when you're choosing
39:10
Speaker 3: to do different avenues and paths. And I would always
39:12
Speaker 3: say the balance of how it appears to you as
39:15
Speaker 3: you know, you have this family and you're traveling is
39:18
Speaker 3: I would say that it is the habit forming that
39:21
Speaker 3: has created all of these different changes, because it never
39:24
Speaker 3: started out just like what you see now. It was, oh,
39:27
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to start to implement this a
39:29
Speaker 3: little bit in my life, and then you start to
39:31
Speaker 3: do it, and then it creates the habit and then
39:33
Speaker 3: you start to onload or onboard something else. And just
39:37
Speaker 3: the amount of things that I've been able to do
39:39
Speaker 3: has come from the consistency and staying like really focused
39:43
Speaker 3: on that goal. And I could say the same about
39:44
Speaker 3: you too, Thank you, and so I'd say consistency is
39:48
Speaker 3: really key and you have been a great model of
39:50
Speaker 3: that as well.
39:51
Speaker 2: Thanks for saying that.
39:53
Speaker 1: I think there's an element of instant gratification in our culture.
39:56
Speaker 1: That's really tough to avoid. But it it's almost like
40:00
Speaker 1: you have to avoid it.
40:02
Speaker 3: You have to. Yeah, I mean it's like weight loss.
40:05
Speaker 3: It's kind of like running a marathon, you know, like
40:08
Speaker 3: the book, Like a very few people, I'm sure their
40:11
Speaker 3: outliers would pick up and run a marathon the next
40:13
Speaker 3: day with not training. But anything that requires like a
40:17
Speaker 3: really like big goal, requires consistency, taking your time and
40:22
Speaker 3: just staying true to the goal, keep your eye on
40:25
Speaker 3: the prize.
40:26
Speaker 1: Okay, this is a community of readers, so they're going
40:29
Speaker 1: to grab your book. But for anybody who is new
40:33
Speaker 1: to your work, where would you point them? What's one
40:36
Speaker 1: thing you think one chapter they should read, one podcast
40:39
Speaker 1: they should listen to, one Instagram post that they should
40:42
Speaker 1: look at of yours.
40:43
Speaker 2: Like, what is one thing you would point them to.
40:46
Speaker 3: I would say definitely right now the book because it
40:48
Speaker 3: has so much, you know, information in there. I would
40:51
Speaker 3: definitely say reading this is that there's no agenda in
40:56
Speaker 3: the sense that you have to accomplish everything in there immediately.
41:00
Speaker 3: The same thing that we've been saying is I wanted
41:02
Speaker 3: this book to be something that you could come back to,
41:04
Speaker 3: whether it's in the next day, two months, five years
41:08
Speaker 3: that it could still hold so much that follows you
41:11
Speaker 3: through the journey of your life. And the biggest part
41:14
Speaker 3: of this as well, is because you've most of our
41:16
Speaker 3: conversation has been about it is lifestyle. Right. If I
41:19
Speaker 3: can't evoke a sense of that I want my life
41:23
Speaker 3: to look holistically like this in this book, then I
41:27
Speaker 3: feel that I would have failed the reader. And that's
41:29
Speaker 3: why you know at the back, you know our hashtag
41:31
Speaker 3: is evidence based lifestyle approved is because everyone gets to
41:37
Speaker 3: dictate what their journey is going to look like, and
41:39
Speaker 3: that's what you can do through this book.
41:41
Speaker 1: Would you do me a favor and take us all
41:44
Speaker 1: out by reading your book dedication?
41:46
Speaker 2: I really love your dedication.
41:48
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so here we go, Generation M. I dedicate
41:52
Speaker 3: this book to all women. Our experiences should be shared
41:57
Speaker 3: instead of silenced. Menopause is a journey, not a race.
42:02
Speaker 3: Through these chapters, I hope you find pieces of yourself
42:05
Speaker 3: that give you the courage to bring heart and understanding
42:09
Speaker 3: to the next segments of your life in wellness.
42:12
Speaker 1: Okay, now I think I have to get the audiobook
42:14
Speaker 1: because it was so calming hearing your voice.
42:17
Speaker 3: I'm telling you should try it out and let me
42:19
Speaker 3: know what you think.
42:20
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the audio because I read the book book,
42:23
Speaker 1: so now I'm going to do the audio book.
42:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it, and I love you too, I
42:28
Speaker 3: really do.
42:29
Speaker 1: I love you so much. Okay, you know what time
42:36
Speaker 1: it is. Today's a good day. To have a good day.
42:40
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.