The Science-Backed Reset That Changed Jennifer’s Menopause Journey

Today I have the honor of sitting down with two incredible women from our community who are going to share their own personal health journeys, what they struggled with, how they transformed their health, and lessons that they learned along the way. My first guest is Jennifer Buckner, who has an interesting journey to share that involved her struggling with a number of things from weight gain, energy crashes, joint pain and inflammation, bloating, and acid reflux in her late 40s that left her crying in the doctor's offices. Jumping from diet to diet without ever feeling like she was making any progress. Jennifer, thank you so much for being here with me today. I'd love if you can start by taking us back to the middle of really where you were struggling the most. What, what did you feel and what did you try that left you feeling like nothing was working?

So I think like a lot of women who've gone through the program, my body kind of allowed me to get away with bad habits for a very long time. And then perimenopause, suddenly, like, it was a game changer. And so things were happening and I wasn't drastically changing my lifestyle or my food, and it felt like I was not in control anymore. I'm an educator, I'm a teacher. So I was reading everything I could get my hands on. I was listening to podcast after podcast. I mean, I was really just trying to figure out how to fix it. I'm also a problem solver. That's kind of what I do at work. And I could not seem to find the way to fix it. So I tried everything. I tried the programs where you're counting calories, um, and you're logging everything you eat. I tried balancing that against my exercise, you know, can I run a few more miles? I tried 30-day elimination diets. I tried everything. And while maybe for a few weeks I felt a little bit better, it would all come back. And it just seemed like Things were compiling as the months went on and I felt like I wasn't in control, to be honest. It, it was scary.

Yeah, I can imagine that. That is so scary. I mean, I understand what it, what it feels like. And then you would go to the doctor and say, what, what would you like, what was the experience? What would you say? What, what, what were you told?

Yeah. So I can say, I know, um, a lot of people will say their doctors don't listen to them. I have an incredible primary healthcare provider. He's amazing and he would listen. I mean, short of crying with me in the office. He was completely with me, like, let's figure this out, let me help you. So, you know, when I went into the office with a book with Post-it notes tabbed about menopause and like, I think I need hormone replacement therapy, he was like, okay, you know, let's jump on board. So I'm incredibly blessed in that I have a very supportive healthcare provider, and I just think maybe all of the nutritional pieces were outside of his training because, you know, whether it was from him or from others, I was definitely getting the calories in, calories out message. You know, you need more calories out than you need in. And it wasn't working. I mean, that, that wasn't making the changes. I was still miserable and all of these symptoms were just getting worse. So I knew that that was not going to be what was going to help me.

And so when you say that you've tried all these nutrition programs and mostly diets, would they work initially and then they stopped working or they just didn't work at all?

You know, I think maybe at first because you were on caloric restriction, I would lose a little weight and I'd think they were working. You know, sort of, oh, I look better, you know, maybe my stomach's a little smaller, so this must be working. But a lot of the other symptoms that you mentioned when we started talking, they didn't go away. And then the weight loss would not be sustained, and it would come back the second I started eating, you know, a normal day's worth of calories. They would return. And honestly, they're so restrictive in many ways that I was hungry, and I was also really having worse cravings. And so my rebound was almost worse after I would do any of those programs. So I never could stick with them. They weren't sustainable.

Yeah. And so I know I shared your symptoms in the beginning, but can you share in your own words, like, what were the symptoms that were the worst or the, the hardest to really cope with that left you feeling, you know, so hopeless and crying in the doctor's office trying to figure this out?

Well, I've mentioned the weight gain and the bloating. Um, I have my entire life, I've had GI issues, and I just thought that's how a normal body felt, which is kind of crazy. But if that's all you know, if that's your framework for your life experience, you don't realize like, oh, my gut could be quiet during the day. I could not worry about the gas I have, or I could have normal bowel movements. I assume on this podcast it's not TMI to say that.

It's not.

No. And so I just— I thought that's just how everybody is and then realized like, no, that's not how everyone is. And then through aging, I went through menopause really young. You know, by 46 I was finished, which I think is pretty young, um, at 46 to be postmenopausal. And so all these other symptoms that come with that total crash in estrogen, like, um, my reflux was getting unbearable where I would struggle to go to sleep at night. You know, if I laid down, it was so uncomfortable. My energy crashes in the afternoon were rough. And I'm in a job where it is just go, go, go all day long. There's just— and no one has space for that. But I really struggled to get through a day. Um, my sleep was interrupted at night. And I haven't mentioned this, but the other complicated factor of my health journey is in 2007 they found tumors in my thyroid which were undiagnosed. Uh, well, the biopsy could not determine if they were cancer or not, so I had to have a thyroidectomy. So when you are now taking a synthetic version of the thyroid hormone and your body's going through menopause and those hormones are all linked, it was just, I mean, it was a roller coaster. So things like the energy, the hair loss, the sleep. I mean, I was waking up multiple times at night with, you know, the, the joyous hot flashes and all of that. I mean, it was just, it felt like it was out of control. And when you're tired, you know, I did that when I had my girls. We're past that phase. I don't wanna be tired anymore. Um, you just can't function.

Yeah. Especially when you have such a demanding job where you're, you work for a university, you're a dean for, you said 11 different departments where I, in addition to teaching, your, the demand that you have for like your cognition and being able to stay focused is very high.

Mm-hmm. Yes. So I'm, I'm in the dean's office at my college. I'm the associate dean and I work with another colleague. But yeah, it's constantly shifting in the course of a day. You might have a plan for your day, but then there's going to be an emergency or something's going to happen and you're going to need to step up and be alert. And I just also, I haven't mentioned the brain fog, but I couldn't think straight and it just feels like your body is betraying you in so many ways.

Yeah, it's definitely a good way of saying it. So when your doctor started you on the hormone replacement therapy, did that happen before you started the blood sugar reset or after?

This was all happening about the same time. So I started the Blood Sugar Reset. I actually, in my quest to find, you know, the golden ticket to my health, landed on a podcast. I've tried to recently remember what it was, but your name is all over Spotify, so I have no idea which one it was. And it was about gut health. And I was like, oh, this is going to be the ticket. You know, I'm going to increase my gut health. And I listened to you, and I like smart women, and I said, I'm going to figure out what she knows. Like, I'm going to start following her. So I started following you social media, and this is good for your marketing, you'll know it works. And then you announced the Blood Sugar Reset, and I said, I can do a week or 10 days, however long that reset was. I can do that.

10 days.

Yes. Yeah, I can do this. So I signed up and told my husband, I need you to support me. I'm going to try this. And he's like, absolutely. So we cleared the kitchen. We are currently empty nesters, so it was pretty easy. No young people in the house. We cleared the kitchen. And he did it with me, like, the whole 10 days. And afterwards I said, I feel incredible. I don't want to go back. And so I joined the Being Collective so that I could use the meal planning and the recipes until I learned enough of, you know, what an optimal plate is to create my own sometimes, um, and kind of go off script. Um, and then decided, no, I want to keep going. So we had another conversation. I said, I really want to do this 10-week program. And he's like, All right, let's do it. So somewhere in that journey, in that series of 3 or 4 months, is I was also reading a book about menopause by another smart woman and walked into the doctor's office and said, I'm doing all these things and I need you to support me with this. And he was like, absolutely. So it kind of all happened together.

And what was it? What were you reading?

The New Menopause by Dr. Mary Claire Haver. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mine is like annotated, Post-it notes, the whole thing. It's beautiful. Like a whole flag of colors on the end. And so I actually go to church with my doctor, and it was sometime around week— is it week 3 or 4 when we do Prolon?

Week 3.

Okay. So after Prolon, because, um, my husband's a music minister, so I was leading worship, and, um, my doctor was like looking at me from the congregation, and he comes up to me afterwards and he says, I don't know what you're doing, but you are glowing. And I said, oh my gosh, I have chills. That is like the best compliment ever because you have known me for 20 years. And for you to see that and say that knowing— and he didn't know at that point what I was doing. I hadn't seen him since I started My Food Is Health. And so he said, you have to tell me what you're doing. So I basically was like, all right, let's sit down, let's talk, you know? And I told him everything. And I'm telling you, he's the best.

Oh, that's so nice. That's so great to have a doctor that's willing to listen to the things that are working for you.

Yes.

So then in the Blood Sugar Reset, you had shared that initially in the Blood Sugar Reset, you had improved certain symptoms like the acid reflux. How did you know that it was different from what you've tried in the past? Do you remember any specific moments of feeling like, wow, this is so different than anything that I've tried in the past?

I remember my sleep was, was markedly different, like sleeping through the night, and I hadn't done that in years. Um, and at that point, I was not on hormone replacement therapy. Um, I also remember being able to go to sleep, laying down, and not feeling like I had this overwhelming burning sensation that was keeping me awake. Um, you know, and the reflux had gotten so bad that even if I was eating healthy foods, I'm going to do that with air quotes, I still had it. It was still present. And so when I finished the Blood Sugar Reset, I knew like, wow, this is— I'm functioning, I feel better, I have energy, I'm not hurting. But then it was about halfway through my Food Is Health, I worked with Michelle, who's incredible, because I also had some strength and fitness goals as well. So I don't know if that's how I got paired with her, but she was great. Um, we identified that like, yeah, you love coffee, Jennifer, but it doesn't love your body. And so that was a really, really hard breakup for me. Dairy was easy, gluten was easy, coffee was a hard breakup. And every now and then, I know now I can tolerate a cup of coffee every now and then, but I can't do it daily without having some level of reflux. So once I eliminated that, um, It went away.

Wow. Fully. Because you said that it had mostly resolved or like it had improved a lot in just the Blood Sugar Reset alone, and then you moved into the Be in Collective membership and then in My Food Is Health. Once you joined My Food Is Health was when it fully resolved.

Correct. And I didn't know until it fully resolved that I still had, you know, the, the kind of coughing that you do frequently, clearing your throat, um, and some just kind of a mild reflux feeling. I didn't realize that's what that was until it went away. Because it had been so, so bad at the beginning of the Being Collective, literally painful all day long, that I thought that was it. But then once it fully resolved, I realized, like, oh, this is great. This is what it should feel like.

Yeah, that's amazing. I also want to just add that we don't have everyone remove coffee. This is very much about, like, helping people identify their own individual trigger foods in My Food Is Health. When you're working one-on-one with a dietitian and you're looking at the labs that you've gotten done and your health history and other things. So that is not the case for everyone, but if it is, you know, we're able to help try to spot it and then even give the option to— the opportunity to like walk through reintroducing something so that, as you just identified, like if you have too much coffee, then it does trigger. Can you have any coffee or you're— it's completely coffee-free?

No, I can have some, and I just know it needs to be a dark roast. It might need to be cold brew. It you know, I, I just kind of know the combination of, of what it will work. And it also depends on, you know, if I've had too much to eat. Um, so there are just several things I would say overall, the thing that I loved most about My Food Is Health, there's so much noise about what is healthy in, you know, social media, everything. It's, we have access to too much information sometimes, and there's so much marketing, too much information all the time.

It's a huge problem.

And I'm an information junkie, so I like it sometimes. But for someone like me, everyone is going to market their product as healthy. Everyone is going to say you need to take this supplement. I mean, and I have to zip my lip now sometimes because if I'm out and somebody goes, oh, I'm taking this because it's healthy, or I'm adding this to my diet because it's healthy, I'm taking this supplement because it's healthy, because in the back of my mind I'm thinking, but do you really need it? And that was the thing in My Food Is Health. That was the game changer. So we started with our meal plans, right, which was kind of based on symptomology, I think. And then we got the labs back and Michelle says, oh, here are the deficiencies you have and your omega-3s and 6s are out of balance and you don't have vitamin B and, and you need to add some, you know, salmon to your diet and we need to do this. And all of a sudden I was making choices based on what my body needed not just a blanket list of everything I needed to go buy and take. And actually, it made a difference, you know, because my labs showed I needed those things or I needed to make those changes. And we did. Or the very nuanced work she did with me. Bless. She probably thought, this is one needy client, because I started really strength training during that program too. Because, you know, menopausal women— I mean, all women, all people, but especially we need to build muscle, right? And so I said, I asked her, I need, I would need support here. I've never consistently done this and I really want to make this part of a lifestyle shift. But I had the hardest time fueling before and after workouts. And I do my workouts early, early in the morning and then I go to work for the day and I would be weak or tired. And she was so good about try this before and this after and tweaking, you know, day by day until we got the right combination. It was great because I had someone helping me with my individual body and what I needed.

Yeah, I do think that's the game changer. And I have to bite my tongue a lot in public because it is, it is hard, especially as our society shifts to having more awareness around health and information and even like more functional medicine doctors coming in, or, you know, doctors coming into the functional medicine space that are making recommendations. But might not be off of as in-depth of nutrition experience, it's difficult because everywhere I turn there's so much misinformation. And I do think that the information is beneficial, like you having access to the New Menopause by Dr. Mary Claire Haver and resources like that are incredible. But I do think that it creates a level of overwhelm. And like you said, I spent Years listening to podcasts, reading books, studies, crying in my doctor's office, counting calories and trying diets just to feel worse and worse. I was so unhappy and miserable as I saw my annual lab numbers shifting with red flags on the field. And I've shifted from feeling like a victim of my circumstances beyond my control to having agency. And I think that it's like, I love that you wrote that because it is, it reflects so many women's experience of like trying. It's not that you're not trying, right? Like you were trying so, so hard. It's just that you needed a roadmap and strategy that was intentionally created that worked for you and for your body.

Well, and even the, um, the weekly journals where we would, um, you know, write down what we're eating and how we feel. I'm a smart woman, but I was not paying attention to how I felt after I ate certain things or after I did fueled or didn't fuel before and after exercise, I was not paying attention. And so I didn't understand the cause and effect of choices I was making. And so I felt like I had no agency. But now, if, you know, something happens, I make a choice, and the next day I feel crummy, I'm like, oh yeah, I know, I know why I feel that way. I know how to fix it. That's huge. That is huge to feel like I know what will work for me to get back on track. And the mental shift from shaming myself and judging food, uh, the liberation, like, in my brain, the years I've spent as a woman feeling guilty about certain kinds of foods or overthinking things. And that is huge, that the progress, not perfection. I say it all the time.

It's the key. I feel like a broken record because I say it so much, but it is the key to, like, those breaking that mold or that, that mindset of having to be perfect. I do think, like, in, in how I always intentionally put it into our modules, you know, in the— it's included in every module of My Food Is Health for a specific reason, um, because I think that it is a huge part of what people need to be able to break free of in order to increase that consistency. You also had said, until discovering you all, I believed that I was not capable of changing the trajectory of my health, that lack of self-efficacy is in stark contrast to my work persona where my confidence and problem solving are central to who I am. Can you elaborate on this?

Yes, that, that was really, um, probably one of the hardest things for me. I mean, I've, I've spent my career kind of growing into leadership positions and I have to make a lot of decisions, some of them very difficult, and I'm very confident at work. I'm a confident woman in the workplace, and I did not feel that way about my body and about my health. And it's unnerving, and it's— I don't want to say it's like a Jekyll and Hyde thing, but it's really difficult when you're— because you're still in that body when you're at work and you're feeling miserable, but you're trying to be this confident person. And so there's kind of this disconnect, which is probably why I was not paying attention to how I felt. After I ate or drank or exercised or walked or didn't, because I had to disconnect in order to function in the, in the working world, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it makes so much sense. And I think that it's very relatable to a lot of people. But when you're not really— when you're not taught, you know, you're in the workplace, you're like taught these things and you have other leaders that you're looking up to as you're, you know, like rising in your own career that are showing you the ropes and teaching you. How to get to the place that you're at. And that just doesn't exist very much for people's health. So I think that no matter how capable you are in work or in other areas of your life, that that's a very relatable thing. Okay. Okay. I'd love to hear the progress that you experienced in My Food Is Health. So you shared the initial symptoms that you were experiencing, the weight gain, the inflammation and joint pain, the energy crashes, the bloating and gas, the acid reflux. Tell us, you're now 1 year out from My Food Is Health. So tell us what, what was the progress that you initially experienced and how are you feeling today?

So you named a lot of the symptoms that went away. Um, the other, um, you know, I did lose inches in my waist and in my hip. I lost weight. About, uh, a few weeks after My Food Is Health finished, I was scheduled for regular lab work because of my thyroid hormones, kind of keep a check on that. And I said, while you're there, could you check my cholesterol? And my cholesterol went down 50 points. 50 points. It was insane. I messaged you all, like, I can— I didn't have access to the Practice Better anymore, so I was, like, blasting the whole team. Oh my gosh, you're not going to believe this. And that was one of the red flags that kept going up in perimenopause and menopause and postmenopause. And I was like, I don't understand, because I literally have not changed how I'm eating, why is this going up? Um, and so that was thrilling to see that number go down. You know, I, I would say the mental shift sustained. I, I have not gone back to the way I ate before the blood sugar reset. Now, that's not to say that every now and then I don't have a special treat on a birthday or Christmas or something like that, but by and large, I'm still gluten-free, dairy-free. I have very little sugar. I try to have, you know, optimal meals where half my plate is non-starchy veggies. And, you know, I try to maximize protein. And it's been more— it's been almost a year now. I mean, that's crazy that that lifestyle shift, which I said was a goal for me coming in, like, I don't want to just do this for 10 weeks. I want to truly change my life. It stuck. It really stuck. And so this is how I am now. I have 2 girls in college. And they came home. They go to school in different states, so it's a good trip for them to come home. So I might go a couple months before I see them. They came home and opened the cabinet that used to be snacks, and it was full of like nuts and seeds. And they were like, we went to college and you and Dad turned into squirrels. Like, what happened? It was like, yeah, I'm sorry, girls, we're not going back. So I mean, I think that more than anything, just that, that complete lifestyle shift. People at work know she's not, you know, if we're going to bring donuts in, let's bring some fruit for Jennifer. Like, she's not going to eat that. That has been probably the biggest thing. I've maintained all of the kind of stats, the weight, the size. I did have an InBody scan right before my Food Is Health ended because I wanted Michelle to help me understand it. I would be curious to have another one now, a year later, because I've been doing a lot more strength training and lately I've been really into kind of primal yoga. And so it's been a lot of balance and body work. And so I would be curious, my muscle, my body composition. But in terms of like the scale, I've maintained the, the inches I've maintained and the symptoms are still gone. It's great.

Do you remember a moment in My Food Is Health where you were like, wow, this is really working?

Gosh, the whole time.

Well, I guess you already shared one when your doctor had highlighted how you were glowing even in church from seeing you across the church.

I know that was— and I have a friend at church who did the program this past year, too. And she said, listen, He better look at me and say I'm glowing at the end of that week. I said, I can't make any promises, but it was a great moment for me. Maybe got a spotlight that Sunday or something. I don't know, but it was great.

Oh, that's amazing. Did you have any unexpected wins in the program?

Yeah, I really did not expect my bowel movements to change that much. I know that sounds crazy, but I did not understand what an important bit of information you can get from your GI health, like how much it really reflects your body. And I did not expect the absolute quiet. And that's what it felt like after years and years of just feeling like constant rumbling and bloating and swelling, just to have a quiet body. I mean, I remember having moments where I thought, wow, this is really nice. I'm not hungry and nothing's happening and I feel great. I didn't expect that.

Yeah. What a good feeling and such a good— when we think about symptoms as being warning signs, the fact that that has resolved is definitely an indication that your microbiome balance is changing in a positive way that then obviously impacts many other aspects of your health since the microbiome is involved in preventing, um, so many different aspects of disease. Um, what do you feel most proud of accomplishing or improving now that you look back one year out?

The mental shift. I mean, Brigid, the energy I have spent my entire life beating myself up about food, about the way I look, about a few pounds on the scale. What a waste of time. I mean, I just, man, I drank the Kool-Aid of that narrative and it is just cruel, especially to women. I think I'm just so glad to have that back, to have my mind back and not have it sabotaged. You know, if, yeah, that, that's been amazing.

And so you, you mean like pulling away from this idea of having to be either perfect or like all in or all out with nothing in between? And then beating yourself up for any time that you fall off track?

Yes. Yes. You know, there— I can't remember somewhere we had a module about, you know, the all or nothing. I can't remember what it was called.

The What the Hell Effect.

What the Hell Effect. That was totally me, you know? So you hit a Wednesday, somebody— let's say, for example, somebody brings the donuts to work. You have a donut and you had said like, oh, this week I'm going to get back on track. I'm going to do this diet or I'm going to track these things. And you have the donut and you go like, that's it, I'll start again next week. And the cycle just never ends. But then I would spend Wednesday through Sunday beating myself up for the donut. You know, life is short. Life is so short. The amount of time and energy I spent worried about those things and being so cruel to myself here, it— I'm just so glad to be free of that now.

I'm so glad too. I'm so glad that you're on the other side of it. Um, okay, and then I think that you've already started to allude to this, but is there anything else that you would add to the identity shift that you've experienced? Even if we think about not even from the start of My Food Is Health, but let's say the start of the Blood Sugar Reset, before you started doing the Blood Sugar Reset and the Being Collective?

I mean, I think just my my confidence overall is, is more holistic. It is who I am. Not to say that I don't have things I'm insecure about. I'm human, you know, and I'm not great at everything. So don't let me have too much hubris here. But I'm just overall feeling confident in who I am, not just in the workplace when I'm standing in a meeting or helping a colleague, but just being confident in who I am as a person. That's been huge. It feels like I'm a whole person now. And I just had my 50th birthday too, so that could also be part of it.

Happy birthday.

I understand once you cross over there, you're kind of like, yeah, this is who I am. So, you know, that could be a piece of it too. I don't know.

Walking into this new decade in the healthiest version.

That's right.

I love that. And what would you tell someone that's thinking about joining My Food Is Health? Any advice or recommendations that you would give to them?

Well, obviously I'm all in. I've had 2 friends join. And so my, my one advice would be, if you choose to do My Food Is Health, lean into all of it, all of the resources, you know, go to the meetings if you can. I would literally block my work calendar and say, I have a meeting this hour, you know. So go to the meetings, use your dietitian. I mean, Michelle got so many messages from me. She got my weekly food journals. Here are my wins this week. Here are the things I'm still struggling with. You know, or like randomly I would message her, I did this workout and I felt like I was going to fall over. Please help me. So you have a professional on the other end of that chat who can help you in a way that, you know, we just, like we said earlier, we get flooded with information and misinformation and we, we don't know what to trust. You can trust this person. So leaning into that, I mean, I'm still a member of the Being Collective, will be forever and ever. Amen. We love it. That's such a game changer, especially for busy people. And who's not busy? Because it just does so much of the work for you. So, yeah, I'm a big fan. There was a point at which I was like, what do I have to do to become a functional nutritionist and join this team? Because I believe in this so much. I even asked Michelle about that at one point and she told me, I was like, yeah, I don't know if I want to do all that.

So, I mean, it's never too late. It's never too late. But I do, I actually would say, because I get this question a lot from people that are in our community who have similar experiences, be like, I want to be able to help other people because I feel so good and also so betrayed that for so long, was given so much bad information. And, you know, I think that there's also ways that people can use their skill sets to contribute to the field, right? Like you having the business experience and the teaching experience, like maybe one day you find a career that allows for you to contribute. Because we have people on my team that aren't dietitians or aren't nutritionists, but are contributing to improving people's lives. And, you know, like have come from the insurance industry or other industries where then they're like, this is the most fulfilling work I've ever done because of the messages that we get literally every single day that, you know, are these stories of transformation, which it is like, it's so addicting. It's addicting to be able to help people and to contribute, to be able to share your story, Jennifer. Like, it brings me so much joy and so much purpose. And you just sharing today, like, I think that, you know, sometimes there's ways even outside of fully becoming a nutritionist to be able to contribute to improving other people's lives, which you've done. You know, you're referring friends, you're sharing your story vulnerably today. And so I would say that like thinking about ways that you can do that in your community is something that I would recommend to anyone who is thinking about maybe a career shift before fully shifting. Yeah.

To be clear, if anyone at work watches this, I'm not going to shift my career, but Good point. Good point. It is. You just feel so good and you want other, especially, and I'm not suggesting men, you know, don't have their own challenges, but you just see so many women, especially my age, struggling and you want, I want to help them. I want them to feel as good as I do.

Yes. I love that. Anything else that you would add before we end?

No, this has been great.

Thank you so much for being here with us today, Jennifer. Thank you for sharing your story. I am so grateful for you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the program and to the whole team. Please give them big hugs whenever you see them. It's just been great.

I will.