Dr. Jill Waggoner Talks Menopause, Midlife and More

So y'all listen, we all need a doctor. We need a doctor in the house. You need to visit the doctor at least once a year. And sometimes there are seasons of your life when you're like, could I just ask a doctor? I just have this one question. Well, I have brought an amazing doctor to the show today. Her name is Dr. Jill Wagner. I know her personally. I know her professionally. And if you didn't know her before today, you're going to love getting to know her after our conversation. I want to welcome Dr. Wagner to the show. Well, thank you. Thanks so much for joining me.

Absolutely. You know I couldn't say no.

So, well, you could have.

I could have, but I wasn't gonna choose.

'Cause you can get pretty busy these days depending on what's going on.

Fun fact, you used to be a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.

Was.

Yeah? How long did you do that?

1977 to 1980.

So 3, 4 years in there.

Yeah.

And you enjoyed that?

Oh, it was a lot of fun. It was one of those things, it was such an unusual experience that in the moment I didn't understand what it really meant, but in retrospect, I really understand I didn't understand how big it was.

Yeah, yeah. What do you think having that experience, which appears to be so interestingly separate from the rest of your life?

Oh, I couldn't beat that. I was a flight attendant too.

Before that? No, after that.

After that?

Uh-huh.

I was a flight attendant in graduate school. So I flew Friday, Saturday, Sunday to finance graduate school.

Well, listen, we do what we have to do.

Yes, ma'am.

So graduate school, In the medical arena?

Yes.

Okay.

So I have an MD degree and a master's degree in anatomical sciences.

Oh my.

So when I was working on the master's degree before medical, you know, before I got into the MD part of it, that's what I did. I was a flight attendant.

Did you always know you wanted to be a doctor?

Absolutely.

From—

I knew I wanted to be a doctor when I was a little girl. Back then, you know, girls were not supposed to be doctors. We were supposed to be nurses. Nursing is is a noble profession, but that is not what I wanted to be. And so my grandfather was adamant about me getting to be a doctor. So I just always knew.

That's so great. That's so great. So I heard about you from a previous patient that you had, and she said, you've got to go see Dr. Jill. And I had been seeing you a couple of years right before you decided to make the move into concierge medicine. So for those who don't know, what is concierge medicine?

Concierge is a personalized medicine. And so sometimes people don't really get it, but it is, first of all, everybody who comes to my practice, you have an hour. So we schedule patients an hour apart. Everybody has my personal cell number. And so they are able to call me. You don't call and get the service when you need the doctor after hours. You call and it is me. I am saying hello. And It's just, we know who you are, I know who your family is. It's just a real private, personalized kind of medicine that affords you the opportunity to really develop a relationship.

It's the way doctoring used to be, right?

It is exactly the way doctoring used to be.

The doctor would come to your house with his black doctor kit.

Yes.

The doctor kit we all played with.

Yeah, I know. And the doctors knew who you were. And so when you walk in my office, there's there's never anybody else in there. If it is, they are leaving or coming. So I rarely have more than one patient in my office at a time. So it's a real different thing.

So you decided to make this move. How long after you decided to make this move did it take you to make the move? Are you a fast mover or a slow mover?

A slow mover.

Okay.

As a primary care doc, I was responsible, I was telling you earlier, for about 8,000 lives.

Just getting them in and out. What was the average time you would spend with patients?

15 minutes. Now, I had a habit of spending a little too much time.

Because you would say, you know, we'd be wrapping up and you would say, without rushing, you would say, what other questions do you have? You were just never in a rush.

Yes. Even if I was in a rush, I tried really hard not to appear to be in a rush and really not to be. And so it took more time, so I'd be running behind and I'm trying to remember to call her. I mean, it's a lot, 8,000 lives, if you could just imagine. So now I have 300 and it's so much different, but I had thought about it for years. Concierge medicine's been around since the '80s, but it was not available to many communities. And so when the hospital came to me and said, listen, we have one concierge physician already who was in Highland Park, "Uh, if you'd like to do this, you know, we'll support you in it." And so I said, "Okay, let's go." And we started doing it. And at first they thought it would not work in our community. And I said, "There are a lot of people who want this service." Yeah. Um, and there were a lot of people who wanted this service, many of which were my patients already. Yeah, yeah. And so we made the switch. So it took about a year almost to really make the switch.

Okay.

We made the switch and we opened our new office in January 2020.

What a wonderful time to be starting a new venture.

I know. And then March 2020, they said, shut this down. And scared me to death. I thought, oh my God, we are not going to have any people. We cannot grow. But it was to the contrary because Other patients could not even get in touch with their doctors. They couldn't go in to see a doctor. Everybody was afraid. I had studied enough about COVID and I was looking at what are they doing in other parts of the world? What are they saying? Can you do? I got me some essential oil and some air purifiers and some protection. And I told people, come on in.

Come on in.

They were scared. And so they needed to see me. But they still needed physical therapy.

Physical health.

They needed to see me. They needed to have somebody put their stethoscope on their chest. I told everybody what to do, get you a pulse oximeter. And so we went through the thing differently. And my patients saw me, they could call me at 3 in the morning when they couldn't breathe. It's like, do I need to go to the emergency room or do I just talk them through it? And so it really, it grew like crazy.

That's so great. Now, you had to decide to step off of the normal path. Yeah. Go to school, you go to medical school, you had a thriving practice. And I love how you keep saying lives, not patients.

Yeah.

Lives. I love that. But anytime you step off of the mostly worn path, and especially when you're doing something where there's no buffer. There's, there's nobody doing the marketing for you. There's nobody, you know, there's no big sign on the door. It's you and what happens in your livelihood when it's just you. It's always a step of faith to do that.

Yes.

So, you know, with hindsight being 20/20, if somebody is thinking about making a decision, what counsel would you give them for the enormity of fear, hesitation, wait when there's something that that you don't know how it's gonna turn out, but you feel pulled towards it?

The first thing, I think you always have to have a plan. You just have to have a plan, and so that you can know, you have to have a plan A and a plan B and a C.

Almost ready.

Yeah. And you cannot be afraid to fail. You can't, you cannot be.

Are you naturally a risk taker?

I'm kinda yes and no. I'm a risk taker with my feet on the ground. Understood. Now my husband is a risk taker Undertaker, he's like, we're gonna open the door, that's gonna be 5 million people in.

Oh my God, what are we gonna—

I'm saying, okay baby, so what if we don't have 5 million and we only have 5?

What's the plan then? What's the plan then?

What we gonna do when we only have 5?

So I'm that person. I don't mind taking a risk, particularly at this point in my life, because now I'm fully grown.

Yeah.

And so if not now, because there's a difference between grown and fully grown. Fully grown. It's like, okay, what am I going to do?

And what do I really want to do? And am I bringing the best me to the world? And am I fulfilled?

Yeah.

Because I can come and show up the way somebody else expects me to be, or what I've told— been told that I'm supposed to be. But does that make me— am I fulfilled? Does that make me— so the number one thing is to have the plan. The other thing is don't be afraid. And then the final thing is make sure you have people with you who know things you do not know.

That's good.

If you are the kind of person that you think you know it all and you have it all right, you are going to bump your head and bump it again. So you have to be able and willing to listen to people who may know a little more than you. That's so good.

That's so very good. Um, how long did it take you after stepping off to feel like you could breathe?

I don't know that I can fully breathe.

Even now?

Yeah.

5 years later. 5 years later. Why is that?

Because I am so concerned that I give the best care possible. And so I think if I get too comfortable and too relaxed in it, that I might miss something. And so it is so important to me to give people the best care that I just— I don't know that I will ever fully breathe in medicine until I retire. And then I probably won't retire.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because this is life. It's not a job. It's not a— it's a career, but it's a life that you've decided to live.

Yeah. And I feel like I was called to.

Yeah.

I was talking to one of my colleagues and we were just standing in the hall and he said, "So how long you gonna practice?" And I said, "I don't know. I'm thinking maybe till 75." And he said to me, "Oh, you can do that.

I'm 75." I said, "What?" I had no—

I see him all the time. And then he said something to me that I found very interesting. He said, "I think we do this wrong in medicine." He said, "When we are young and raising kids, we are just trying to see as many people as we can." He said, "Once your children are grown," children get grown and you know, you really know medicine and you are comfortable in the practice of medicine, he said, that's when you really should, your practice should be full, as full as you want it to be.

Wow.

And it kind of, it made me adjust a little bit because medicine, you do not come out of medical school knowing medicine.

It's the art.

Yeah, it really, and there are some stuff that you just look at somebody or you get to You can't even say why it is that you are doing it. I said it was my intuition, and one of my friends said, "Girl, that's the Holy Spirit." But there are some times I have done things and walked out of the room and heard, "Do something different," and walk back into the room and say, "Listen, I can't even tell you why, but I am going to order that test." And it usually turned out that something was going on I would've missed.

Wow.

So it's just, I don't know that I'll ever be able to just, oh, let me take a breath.

But that's great. That's great. You pop up everywhere. You pop up everywhere. So you're not only concierge medicining, if I can make that word, you have a podcast. Is it a class? Do you call it a class?

It's a class.

Trim and Thrive.

Trim and Thrive.

How long does that class last?

It's 6 weeks.

It's 6 weeks.

But we have a Facebook group that continues.

Venues. We let people stay in there.

Yeah, that's so great. So you're, you're doing that. Um, I see you on your social media, you're on stages and sharing with the young, sharing with the seasoned. You're just everywhere. What do you do to, um, make sure you maintain balance?

Yeah, that's a hard one. It really is.

Are you naturally a person who tends towards balance?

Sometimes. Do you want the truth? Do you want me to give you a cute answer?

I am balanced sometimes, okay? And sometimes I am all over the place, just like everybody else.

I'm just like, "Oh Lord." And my issue is that I say yes sometimes when I should Okay.

And it sounds like a real good idea.

At the time.

3 weeks ahead of time, it's like, "Oh my God, sure, yeah, sure." So I'm balanced sometimes.

What I have learned though, there was a time in my life that I would not stop and rest unless I was sick. 'Cause I felt guilty about. Now, I can say, "Okay, I need to be off the grid for a minute." You know, I mean, I get to go to church every Sunday because sometimes— I know, I know, clutch 'em, girl—

but sometimes I'm not fit to be with people.

Listen, with humans, and you need to know that.

You need to know so you will not run over Sister Whoever in the parking lot. You should stay at home that day.

But yeah, so I am learning to, to do that, to really shut down. And I'm learning to do things like my daughter and I, and then my husband and I did same thing. Uh, for our anniversary, we did a staycation. So he just got us a hotel room, and we just relaxed and walked and just stuff. So I am learning that balance is critical, because you just— there is no such thing as Superwoman. You cannot. That's foolishness.

We sure do try though.

We do try. And but it's okay, you know. I, I say to my children, I tried to be the best mother that I I could, you know, when I was trying to balance all the balls, and I might have fallen short. Just go ahead and take that up in counseling. It's gonna be okay.

Get— go to get your counselor. It's the big thing.

Girl, I'll even pay for your first few sessions.

Listen, just get a counselor, and we do it the best we can.

We do it the best we can.

Yes, and I'm sorry in advance. In advance. Yep. That's about right. And I mean, I really mean it.

Truly, yes. I am sorry. We're all We're all out here learning it as we do it and doing the best we can. That's so great. Okay, so I know that medicine is important to you. I know that healthy living is important to you and that people understanding the functional and integrative nature of how we're designed. In fact, I know you've studied beyond your medical degree, functional specifically, and integrative medicine. So can you explain what that means? What it means? Going beyond, I went to my doctor once a year, you know, I got my checkup, I take my prescription drugs. What does it mean to be aware and understand what functional and integrative medicine actually looks like and living actually looks like too?

So functional medicine really focuses on the root cause. It is trying to get to the bottom of why this cascade of things is happening or has happened that resulted in illness. So it's really, let's almost get to the cellular level to try to figure what's going on. Integrative medicine is using multiple healing modalities to try to get the person to wellness. So I think that you have to incorporate all of them. What is causing your issue? If somebody has joint pain everywhere, so they got knee pain and ankle pain and all of that, and I am looking at them walk, and I am looking at the fact that they may have too much weight or that they are wearing something too tight around their waist that's causing their back to be out, that stuff, really being able to tell the patient, okay, these are the things that we need to focus on so that we can try to get you aligned and back to wellness so your body can heal itself. So that's why it's important because in conventional medicine is the term that we use for allopathic medicine. In conventional medicine, we were taught to treat treat disease. That's what we do. In our arsenal, we have some prescriptions for you. Nobody taught us about food. That is not what we were trained to do. So it's not that doctors don't want to give you some other things. You cannot give the people what you do not have.

What you don't have. Right?

And so when you understand that, you understand the reason the surgeon is saying surgery, 'Cause they're a surgeon.

That's what they do.

That's what they do. Why are you in there if you don't wanna have surgery?

So you have to know that. You also have to know that when you're dealing with integrative or functional medicine, that you have to take some responsibility for your health and wellbeing.

But we're not used to that.

We are not.

We're used to going to the doctor and whatever they say. And maybe we go get a second opinion.

Yes.

'Cause it feels so overwhelming. Yes. To have to kind of be your own advocate.

Yeah, your own advocate and understanding that I might be doing some things that are contributing to—

And realize if you're your own enemy as well. Yes.

Yeah, you just have to know. And so you have to be grown and you have to be accepting and you have to be mature to deal with the doctor who says, I'm not in control of this, I'm part of the And so you can really hear the guidelines. Here's some things you can add. This is what you ought to do. And some doctors, and I will say it sometimes, I don't know. I cannot answer that question for you. I can look for all of the reasons and I can tell you what it isn't. Sometimes I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you some things that can help you with the symptoms. But it's moving away from the symptoms. Symptoms, because we treat a lot of things, we treat the symptoms and call them diseases. Like we treat obesity. Obesity is not the issue, it's a symptom of the issue. We treat high blood pressure, that's not the issue, it's a symptom of the issue. So being able to get to what the issue really is, is sometimes tough.

So did you find it, or do you find it difficult, I guess, for you as a trained professional teaching yourself, studying, researching, doing all of these things to enable you to be a different kind of doctor. And that same thing for individuals wanting to kind of get out of the rut of I go to the doctor, I get a prescription. It feels for many of us, like we're trying to teach ourselves something we don't know. We're trying to find answers. We don't even know the questions to ask.

Right.

So if somebody's listening or watching and they're saying, okay, that's great. I know that I need to stop, just not stop taking your pills, but stop just treating symptoms. But I feel overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to get to root causes and how to deal with things from their origin. Where do we start?

That's a big question and I'm going to tell you why. You want the patient to be informed. You just don't want them to be misinformed. And so because there's a lot.

Yes.

Yes. Do not send me a TikTok thing.

TikTok. Oh Lord.

Because there's so much. It used to be just on Google, but now it's TikTok, it's Instagram, it's all that.

So I have to always remember that people are, their intentions are good when they come to me, the professional who's practiced medicine for 30+ years, who has a master's degree, who has an MD degree, who studied integrative and functional medicine, and they have sent me something that old boy who can't spell these words on TikTok.

Do you think that kind of irritates me a little bit? Just a little bit. They sent me this on TikTok. I think you need to get off TikTok. That's what I think.

No, but I, so I think the most important thing is for patients to have a relationship with their physician and have a physician who has time to give you what you need. The other thing I think we have to be informed or patients need to be informed about what is within the purview of your physician. There are some physicians who just don't know because they don't even have time to do the extra study. So you cannot be in there expecting them to give you something they don't have. Find another physician. You might have to pay a little more, but you do that for everything.

And you're going to pay later anyway if you don't.

You are going to pay later. And it may not cost you just money, but can you really fulfill what you are set to do? Are you spending your retired years at the doctor's offices instead of on a cruise? You know, all of that, because that's not what you want to do with your time. Yeah. So yes, you need to be informed enough to know what questions to ask, but you go in as—

I say, go in Humbly present yourself. You know, it's not, I'm not telling you what to do, but I have some questions because it's important for you to have questions.

It's important for you to be an advocate, but make sure you're getting information from the right sources, number one. Number two, do not go into the doctor's office with 17 things because often what people will do, they come for the physical and they think that a physical means I tell the doctor everything that has happened to me since last year. Well, that's really not even what a physical is. A physical is a preventive exam. That's where you come in to get your blood work and we check your pap smear, your mammogram, do an EKG if you need to. We're not talking about your knees. That's a separate visit. Many people don't know that.

I'm sitting here looking at you like, "Oh, I didn't know this when I was further." I was like, "When I go to the doctor, I'm gonna ask him about my knees." This is not Nita! Come here, Nita! But that kind of stuff, just explaining to people what does this mean.

Like Medicare has a Medicare wellness exam.

Well, people think, you know, you Medicare age, you got a little stuff going on.

So they think you're supposed to talk about that. It's not even an exam, period. It's not required by Medicare that the doctor ever put the stethoscope on your chest.

Test.

It is questions. Can you stand up? Can you sit down? Do you have rugs?

Are you falling? Do you have some?

That's what that is. It's a checkup. It's about, well, what do you want to do if you can't breathe on your own? That's what it is. It's kind of a checkup, but people don't know that. So first of all, understanding what you're going into the doctor for, understanding how much can this doctor get into this 15 —because that's what they have. —That's what they have. And some 10. So they got 15 minutes. That's one thing. The other thing I think is very important is often people are irritated by the schedulers when they say, "Ma'am, sir, what are you seeing the doctor for?" And they don't want to tell them their business. Well, that's how they determine what appointment you need, right? So if you've got a thing that would require more and we've got you in a quick slot, that doesn't happen in my practice because everybody gets an hour. But we got, unless you've got a cold or something. But anyway, I go off into the weeds. But if we know what it is that you're coming in for, they can put you where you are best served. Okay.

That's so good. Okay. So if I'm trying to figure out if this doctor is the doctor I need, what are some questions Again, I'm thinking about the person that's going, I want to do better. I don't live in Dallas. How do I know? How do I find? I can look the doctors up, but what am I looking for?

What questions am I asking? It's hard. That is really— sometimes you have to go and just see.

Just try, try, try.

It's like dating. Yeah, it really is. So first of all, what is the office like? Okay. What is that office like? Even things like my office manager and I will touch up paint. Because I understand that whether you are aware of it or not, when you walk in and the paint is scuffed up, in our heads, especially if we are women, it's like, "Uh, they're not taking care of this." So now it translates into everything. So what is the office like? Are you comfortable there? What is the staff like? Because even the doctor can be the best doctor in the world, if you cannot get to them or communicate with their staff, that is going to be a problem. Problem. So you look for that. The other thing is, even if the doctor has a short period of time, do they hear you?

Because I've had that happen. It's like I've dealt with a doctor who— I was on the treadmill. That's what it felt like. They were on the treadmill and they were just passing by me. It was like, check, check, box, box, X, X, gone, but not—

I didn't feel heard. Right. You have to have a doctor who hears you, who not only hears you, but they see you. One of the questions I will ask patients sometimes when they're asking me stuff that's kind of odd, and I'm thinking, what? So I will say, what is your greatest fear? Mm-hmm. Because then they are going to tell me, well, my uncle died from this. And what I hear is he had this. So they think they're dying. So what test can I do that will help them understand that they're not dying? Right. Right. I get to that first. That's good. So now, even though I may not even think that's what it is, but if that's the thing that's keeping you up, then let's go straight to that and get that off the list. And now we can deal with some of this other stuff. So somebody who sees you, hears you, and takes you seriously.

Seriously, because there's nothing worse than being in a doctor's office and feeling dismissed.

Yes. Nothing worse than that. And I often hear people say, "Oh, you have to fight for the test. Make sure that they give you—" You like you at the wrong doctor's office.

Listen. If you fighting like that, you at the wrong— If you rolling in the floor about this blood work, girl, bye.

Get your purse and pay that and go on. Get you someplace else.

Y'all, the girls in the Inner Circle are always ready to grow, and how we've decided to grow in the second quarter of this year is to join a book club, and I want you to get in. We start April 21st. 100 Days to Discovering the Gift of You. This is the book we're going through, and this is what we're going to do together. You don't want to miss it. Join today. Go to thesistercircle.com/innercircle. Okay, so I told you before we started recording, and I'm going to backtrack, but we're going to start in the hot seat. Okay. I've had you on my list of people I wanted to talk to for forever. But what made me pick up the phone, text, email, all the things, is because I was having breakfast with a friend of mine, and she was like, I really love your podcast. And I said, well, what do you want me to talk about? And I didn't even have to tell you. I said, guess what she said?

And she said, and you were I'm like, "Menopause!" That's right.

You knew. That's the one. I'd love to digress after this, and if you were going to talk to different women in different decades of their life, like what high-level counsel you'd give them. But I want to dig in deep with menopause. Now, I am of menopausal age. I don't have a lot of the things that some people talk about. Maybe it's coming. So, I'm not asking you because I'm in the middle of it. But I know so many of my people, my friends are. The biggest concern that I have, though, is how much the season catches them off guard. And they just feel like they're behind, chasing the 8-ball. They weren't prepared for it. They didn't— you know, we know about menopause and hot flashes. Everybody knows about that. But there are so many other things. The one thing that I do have a touch of, and this could just be that I'm tired, or it could be that I'm stressed, or it could be menopausal, is that the word will be right there. I can almost see it. I know what letter it starts with.

You can't spell it.

But it's right here, and I can't say it. I can't say it. Yes, ma'am. Or spell. Yes, ma'am. Okay, so I have had that happen. Yes, ma'am. But I think like, I don't know that I knew that until I was saying that one day and somebody said, girl, that's probably menopause. And I was like, is it? So why is it, first of all, with all of this education, all these books, all of this social media, that we are still so caught off guard?

I don't know. First of all, We think we not gonna be menopausal.

We think it should happen to her and not me.

Well, because we see it as an old lady's disease. And we are very young compared to the generation before us for our ages. True. And so people that we saw, you know, you saw your grandpa.

You got these holes in your jeans.

Girl, listen. And I'm trying to make sure I'm holy. Oh, I saw a woman I mean, let's show it to myself. Okay, but see, stop this.

You're making me— But we saw our grandmothers as menopausal.

Even though we're grandmothers, we're not grandmothers like they were grandmothers.

So that's the first part, is that we just don't see ourselves. And then the other thing is I think women will, because everybody says, and I have folk who are in their 60s and they're like, I think I'm premenopausal. No, no.

Girl, you are, listen, if you are in your 60s, ma'am, you are full throttle. Oh, you're in it, in it.

'Cause how long does menopause last?

It never, the term menopause means the cessation of menses.

So once you stop having a period, you are in menopause forever.

Now there are different stages of menopause. Right after your cycle stops or in that first, so you are not technically menopausal until you haven't had a cycle for a year. Okay. So that's when you're menopausal. Many women start having symptoms as much as a decade before that. The first symptom that most women have is difficulty sleeping. It starts in your late 30s, early 40s. You wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, why am I up? Why am I awake? Yeah. Why am I up? So we all think that God is talking to us.

God can talk to you in the morning. God is God. Why? God does not have to wake you up. There are a whole—

I just watched a video last week. The whole video was about waking up in the middle of the night and what you do and how God— not that he can't, but I'm saying you got people thinking that that's what it is. And some of it is stupid.

Well, why would God disturb your sleep for years? Come on now. Are either you not listening? Oh, God. Or God has jokes. No.

So that's what we say. Well, God is waking me up. Yeah, that's nice.

Okay.

But also— But you're menopausal. Yeah. Are you getting hot at night? Yeah. All of that, you're menopausal. And so those are the early stages of menopause. And that is usually when progesterone— so there are 3 hormones. There's estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

Women also make— Because we have some of that.

Yes, we do. And postmenopausally, sometimes women will have even more because your pituitary pituitary gland is telling your body, make something. And we are not able to make estrogen, so we start making testosterone. That's where our hair starts growing.

Is that what happened with these children?

These stubborn, random—

That's what had happened. That's it. Yes.

So then also with polycystic ovarian syndrome, women convert their estrogen to testosterone and they get hairy as well. Okay. So some of that will happen. So that happens in your early 40s, late 30s for people. Most women don't really start getting the hot flashes and that kind of stuff until they're around 50. The average age of menopause is 52. That's when most women stop. But some young women, that's a genetic thing. And also it can be due to stress. Many elite athletes will stop their periods when they are training. When they're training for the Olympics, their periods will stop. Because of stress. Yes. Because of the stress of training intensely, the body says, "Oh, I can't have a baby now, so let me shut this down." So, and they have menopausal symptoms for some of them. And then you get to all of the rest of it. So when your period really stops and that estrogen plummets, then you can't think, you can't spell, a lot of women can't sleep. They are really, really irritable. I mean, really, you know, people, and they're mad at everybody. You like, sis, it's not that serious. They're menopausal, they can't help it. And so there's so many symptoms that women have. You know, they have dryness in all kinds of places. All the places. All the places. They have dryness, and it just, they don't even know. Hair will change. You know, women will lose their hair, and they just, they don't understand. They just at the store buying more products. Buying more products.

That's the truth. Maybe if I rub this oil in here, it'll grow. That is so true. That is so true. Taking these hair vitamins.

And I say to everybody, because everybody's got a list of herbs and I'm that person, I believe you should try all of that. Nothing is going to replace estrogen but estrogen. Estrogen. Nothing.

And so is that hormone replacement therapy? That is hormone replacement therapy.

Years ago, there was something called the Women's Health Initiative. Everybody remembers it. The studies came out and they said hormone replacement therapy causes cancer. Okay. And women stopped. It causes breast cancer and women stopped. Everybody was like, oh my gosh. Well, about maybe 3 years ago, they went back and looked at the information. It was an incorrect study. It was interpreted incorrectly, but it never hit the media again. So there is a generation of women who've been miserable for no reason. Who've been miserable and who have dementia and who have a real heart disease because they did not get estrogen. Estrogen is protective for some of us in some things. Wow. And it's right when the— at the beginning of menopause when it is most effective at protecting you from some of those things. Wow. And so now here we are with these women who just don't know what to do. They have aged poorly, and it was because they needed some hormone replacement therapy. Wow. So the first thing I want to say to women is, listen, talk to somebody who has the updated information. If you go to your doctor and you ask them about estrogen and they can't tell you there are 3 kinds of estrogen, they know nothing about menopause. Great question. Because there's literally E1, E2, and 3. And so you need to know, they can have a discussion with you about that. Then they can really talk to you about hormone replacement therapy, if that's an option for you. But understanding that there are so many symptoms, you can often talk to your spouse or your children. And you can say, "Okay, do you see some differences in me?" Because you might not see them.

You're like, "It's y'all." It's not me, it's y'all. Oh, it is them. But I remember, I have a menopause story. My children have many.

No, my daughter's over there, y'all. No, you cannot say anything. But I remember I was driving down the street and that's when I really was in the throes of menopause. And a woman cut me off. Mm-mm. And that thing, you know, I sped up and I went out honking my horn.

I mean, I lied. I lost it.

Who was in the car with you?

Nobody. But let me tell you what happened.

I saw— so the girl who cut me off was a young girl, and I guess it was her mother in the car. And her mother, I could read her lips.

She's like, she's crazy. And they were horrified.

And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm out here.

I'm out here in the world, Dr. Jill and all. People know who I am. And I have lost it.

And I'm the crazy lady.

Girl, so I called one of my friends. I said, "Girl, I got to do something, 'cause I really, this is not good." And that's when I started doing research so that I could help myself.

Yeah.

Wow. 'Cause I think, like you said, I love that. It's like, why don't we know? It's because it's happening to them. Yes. Not us. Yes. And then when we become them, we are completely unprepared. 'Cause we didn't think, we didn't see it coming and we didn't do any E of the— E of the word. All of the stuff.

Yeah. When I started learning about menopause, and so they didn't teach us in school. That's another thing. They didn't teach us about that at all. I know. When most women live at least a third of their lives in menopause, why didn't y'all teach us about this and what to do? Well, they didn't at all. But when I started studying about menopause, I went to my younger colleagues and I said, y'all need to know. "this, this." And they were like, "Oh, Dr. Wagoner, you do that." They even, some of them were gynecologists. They sent their people to me, but they were in their 30s. They just, they didn't think it was a big deal. Now, years later, they are saying, "Now what about it? Where did you learn?" I literally had to go outside of medicine and go to, well, not outside of medicine, but to pharmacists. Yes. It was pharmacists who taught me about menopause. They told me, this is where you go. These are the seminars that are about menopause. This is what you do. This is how you put it together. And that's how I started the journey to learning. Well, I love that too.

Just the con— we were talking about asking your doctor questions. Yeah. And I think paying attention to the continuing education that your doctor has. You go to the doctor and you may see these random certifications and these random, but that tells you something about their commitment to continuing to learn post the years of the commitment of medical school.

You literally have to. Not only did you not learn everything you needed to know, but the information has changed. Medicine has done a giant leap forward since the pandemic. We have learned so much about inflammation. We have learned so so much about the system and how, what different viruses can do to us. We've learned so many things. We've pulled up old information about things like vitamin D and those that we knew about, but it was not at the fore. There's so much information that we have learned. And if you are in the throes of taking care of 1,000 people or taking care of 8,000 people, you don't have time. You just don't. Wow. And you're raising your families. Yeah. You just do not. So getting a doctor who is up to snuff, so to speak, who knows the latest information, and a doctor who will tell you when they don't know, as opposed to dismissing you. You know, a doctor who will say, you know, I don't really know about that. I can look something up and get back with you, but I have no no understanding of that.

So when you are thinking about, you mentioned some gynecologists not knowing and say, okay, I know that when you are of childbearing age, having an OB is important. I was surprised when I went to the doctor and told her, I said, every other year, because I'm out here in these streets paying full price. Every other year, I'm going to come to you for my general, and I'm going to go to my OB-GYN on the other years. And she said, why would you do that? I said, because y'all do the same thing. Like, you take my blood work. Like, if I'm not having a baby, you do the same thing. And she said, and you actually don't have to go to the gynecologist unless you have a problem.

And I was like, yeah, I should have—

girls, I— that's what I now know. Yeah, because, you know, I've been a mom since I was 19. Yeah. So I've been always going to a general family and an OB-GYN. I don't have to. So when do you need a gynecologist if you are not, well, I guess even if you are, if you're not having babies, when do you need a gynecologist?

If there's something abnormal.

So when there's something wrong, it's not a part of your regular wellness.

Not if you're not of childbearing age.

Because your family doctor or your general doctor can do your pap smear.

Absolutely. Now, all of them don't, but I do. Okay. Yeah. And that's, you know, most family practice docs do. We were trained. We were even trained to deliver babies. Babies because we were trained for rural.

Yes, you know, and having to deal with anything.

Yeah, to be Dr. Quinn or somebody.

That's what we were trained for. Now, thank God we don't have to do that now, but we had that.

That's so— that's so good. I just learned that. Okay, so is there anything— and I know there's lots of things— but for a woman who's thinking, okay, I'm 35, I'm not menopausal, I don't think I'm in perimenopause, I'm 45, I'm not having symptoms, I'm 25, this is so far away, but I'm listening, Dr. Jill. Is there anything in the onset, 20 years before you ever hit it, that you can do proactively to set yourself up for a better menopausal experience? Or is it just, it is what it is, you'll see what it is when you get there?

Well, it's overall being healthy. And I know that sounds like a cop-out. It's like, okay, really?

My kids used to say, "Mommy, you think exercise cures everything." It pretty much does. I'm just saying. It does.

But so you have to keep your body well. Now, my new thing now is make yourself hard to kill, which that means if you catch something, you can come back for it. If you're in a catastrophic accident, you can heal. Yeah. If you are ill, it is very difficult if your body is not well for it to heal itself. So you always have to focus on that. What, what stage in life are you? So if you're a young woman, you're in childbearing age, you're having a period on a regular basis, you ought to be taking, for most people, some iron. You ought to be making sure that you're eating well, because what if you get pregnant and you don't know you're pregnant? What are you putting in your body? Because if you are planning on having babies, that environment needs to be healthy, because what you do to that child in utero affects it their whole lives. Yeah, forever. It affects them. They— it doesn't go away. So that's number one. You're in your 30s, your 40s, again, That's when women, when our hormones start to shift, that's when we start putting on that extra weight. Most women, when you're in your 30s, you know, you may be a little hippie. But when you get to that 40, late middle 40s, then you start doing this, you're like, where did this come from? This is where when your hormones change, your metabolism change, not metabolism in, am I burning calories? But how you process foods, how you process energy. Do you store it as body fat? Do you burn it immediately? So you want to start thinking about, I've got to make sure that I'm doing resistance training because I got to maintain my lean muscle mass. Because when I maintain my lean muscle mass, I am healthier overall. So you know about that.

Then you move into your 50s and you better put the gas on then. You got to be serious.

Can't— am I sleeping? Yes. What am I eating? You cannot be in your 50s eating like you did when you were 19.

I want to, but illness is coming.

I used to go do step aerobics.

I used to teach the class. Yes. And then afterwards, on my way home, I'd stop by McDonald's and get a small Coke and a medium fry. Oh, absolutely. And it was like I earned that. Yes. It didn't have any impact.

Yes. Girl, please. I know.

Today, on today, in the morning, you put on your pajamas, you like, I'm like, what is that, a French fry?

Right here, just right here on the side.

It's a French fry. Oh my God.

No, but it's just knowing that, knowing you've got to take care of yourself. The other thing that I think is important for all women and all of us, period, disease does not fall out of the sky.

We feel like it falls out of the sky, and we think, and then we're like, how did this happen to me?

Yes. And we think that it fell on us because of our genes. Genetically, diabetes falls on all of us, and high blood pressure falls on every— everybody in my family, Dr. Wagner, has high blood pressure and diabetes.

Do y'all all eat the same way? Do y'all all move the same way? That kind of thing.

So understanding what phase of life you are in, what are the things you are going to encounter. Also, in those 50s, you want to think about it your whole life, but you start worrying about bright brain health. Most people don't worry about brain health until they realize something is wrong. By then, the damage has been done. But if you start in those 30s, 40s, 50s, thinking about what is happening with my brain, the first thing you want to protect it. Don't be doing stuff that you're going to hit your head. Why are you jumping off a building?

What are you doing that for?

I did just jump off a building.

Girl! When I turned 50, I did. I skydived. That's okay.

For one thing.

Yeah, but then I just went, um, ziplining on the top of the— but listen to this. Yes, so I was on the— so I was in Costa Rica and my girlfriend wanted to zip—

oh, you had to zipline?

Okay, but here's the thing, they were like, it's just a little 15-minute hike up to the place. That was the first one, took me 40. But as I was coming down the steps when we were finished, I was like, I remember being in my 20s and not giving a thought to whether or not I was going to maintain my balance. Yes. Coming down here. Yes. And I don't know that my balance was off. I just had this hyper-awareness.

You got to think about it.

Yes. That my— are my knees gonna hold me?

And am I in the right place?

Yes. Like this awareness of what you did then, you can't do now. But anyway, that's my—

well, and I've seen that, uh, people making jokes about that. When you're in your 20s, you look at jumping off something, you say, oh, that'll be fun. When you're in your 40s, you think, oh Lord, that's dangerous. You know, it's like, oh, I No too much.

No kill myself.

Yeah. So it's just that kind of thing. But being aware. And when I say don't do things that you would— Yeah. Yeah.

What is— Okay, yes, taking care of my brain. I don't want to knock my head around. What does it mean to care for your brain health? Oh, wow. What does that mean?

I think one of the biggest things you can do, and I know we talk about sugar and what a villain It is. Now they are calling dementia type 3 diabetes. You know why? Because we understand that when you consume the amount of sugar that we do, when you consume that amount of sugar and your insulin goes up, your sugar goes up, your insulin goes up, insulin damages blood vessels. And so that's why people who are diabetic, that's why they have issues. Yes. So you are damaging those blood vessels and the brain and the kidneys have really little bitty blood vessels. And when you damage them, you affect flow. And when your brain does not get adequate blood flow, it is damaged and it does not operate and function the way it should.

Because when I keep hearing that, I'm thinking about all the people that I know of or the family friends or what have you that a relative will have dementia. And normally I'm thinking, I was struggling with the connection connection because so many of them are little people. Like, I don't look at them and say, oh, they have had a struggle with insulin or weight or the type of thing you would associate with.

So there's a thing about people, it's called tofu, fat on the outside, thin on the outside, fat on the inside. Okay. There are literally, or toffee, there are literally people who are very small but are very fat. And when I say fat, I mean they have a lot of body fat. That's why it's important for you to look at body composition. Okay. Now their scale doesn't—

Is that the thing where they take the little pinchers and pinch your fat?

They don't do that anymore. There's a little thing you can buy at the house and stand on there. I do it in my office for my patients because what I want them to know is, because often people will say, "Oh, Dr. Wagner, I don't need to lose weight." You don't need to lose weight. You need to lose body fat and convert that body fat to lean muscle mass. So even that understanding, measuring waist. Women, our waist should be below 32 or something. Men should be— I know, listen, it's all right though. We shall pray. Okay. Do what we need to do. But first you got to know. Right, right.

And we don't like to know. Sometimes people avoid going to the doctor altogether because they don't want to know. I know.

I tell patients all the time, get on the scale every day. Every day, the good Lord says, get, you know, brush your teeth, get all the air out of your lungs, go to the bathroom, pray, and get on the scale. Why are you getting on the scale every day? So that you are in touch with what's happening with your body. It's a touchpoint. Not that you need to be freaked out about it, but monitor as many things as you can. I monitor my blood sugar. I am not a diabetic, but I monitor my blood sugar. I monitor my blood pressure. I weigh every I measure my waist. All of those things are important so that I know what's going on with my body. So just be in the know, be aware. And when something happens differently, you live in your body, you know something's going on. So first assess what I'm doing differently. What has changed? Well, I was walking every day. Oh, and for the last 6 months, I haven't walked. Oh, yeah. So my body is responding to that. So understand, because often it's not necessarily disease. It is your body speaking to you to let you know you are not treating me in the way I need to be treated. And so you can make those adjustments. Let's talk about food. Absolutely. That's my thing. So are you a plant-based eater? I'm a plant-strong eater.

Ha! I got one for you though. I'm stealing that.

'Cause what is it that you, why not completely plant-based? Is it because it's functionally, makes it quicker and easier for you to get in your protein? Or is it that I just like a good steak every now and again?

Like what is it? I think it's all of that. Okay. I am particular. I try really, really hard that when I do eat meat, I don't eat large volumes of meat. We try to make sure that it's organic or, you know, it's grass-fed, all of that kind of stuff. So it's good. Majority vegetables. So I tell everybody, when you do your plate, 3/4 of it ought to be plants. So, and it ought to be multicolored plants. And then you ought to have a small amount. And I'm not into calories or measuring or weighing.

Because when you're eating nutrient-dense, you don't have to worry about that.

You don't have to worry about that. Just eat good quality food that your grandmother would recognize. If your grandmother would not know that it's food, don't eat it. That's good. It is. It's real simple. When you cook for yourself, you know what it is. And if you cook for yourself, it should not take you 3 days to cook. If it is taking you 2 hours in the kitchen, you are cooking the wrong stuff.

Because a lot of people don't cook because it's too hard or it takes too long. Uh-huh. But you're saying do something different. Shouldn't be that hard.

Do something different. A good meal ought to take you about 20 minutes to cook. Now, there are some things— you've probably seen some of that on my— what I do, uh, I cut up things all the time. So if I'm cutting up one onion, I cut up— yes, I cut up everything and I put what's left over. And so then when I am ready, I can take that and take some of those veggies and put them in a pot and make it soup. I can make it a salad. I can sauté it. I can do, you know, put some of that in my greens if I'm doing it. You got all of this stuff that's there and ready to go. You just have to be prepared to cook. And the other thing is seasonings. You've got to know what seasonings are. You just got to know what's good to you, what's healthy, and just make it healthy, make it quick, and eat it. It's better anyway.

Now I know that you've lost a lot of weight.

I have 100 pounds. I have. When I first started losing—

But I remember I remember when you talked to me about being a vegetarian.

Yes, I was.

And girl, let me tell you something. I've been every area. I've been vegetarian, pescatarian, plantarian. I've been all of it.

And what I have found out, the more information that you know, because you know I have a certification in plant-based nutrition. Because for me, understanding all of it is very important. What I have understand, it's not that all things in moderation thing, throw that in the trash.

That is not, if it is bad food, it's bad food.

You do not need to eat bad food in moderation, put that away. But what I do every time, and I recommend this to my patients in Trim and Thrive, every time you eat, you ought to have plants, protein and fat. So every time it ought to be balanced because now I understand how that affects the way your body handles the food. Because this is— food is not calories. Food is information. It is. And so the food tells your body what to do with it. And when you understand that, you understand I can't do the— it's not the same thing to have 500 calories of ice cream and 500 calories of greens. It just doesn't even make sense. So why are we counting that? That's the wrong thing we need to count. So I've been all of that stuff. What I try to do is good, healthy food. I try to make good decisions about what I eat. I like to educate my patients and I like to make sure I'm educated. So whatever I choose to eat, because I can eat whatever, nothing is off limits for me. However, there are some things I choose not to eat.

So what made the difference between all the knowledge that you had as a doctor, all the work that you had already done, and the actual change in your physicality?

Well, first of all, It wasn't, maybe 20 years ago, we knew what Syndrome X was. That's what we called Syndrome X, which we knew it had to do something with metabolism, but we didn't really understand. About 10 years ago, we started really understanding metabolic syndrome and what that means. What that means is when you get so much body fat or you eat so many foods that have chemicals in them, what they do to your body metabolically, when they elevate your blood sugar, it elevates your insulin. Insulin. Insulin is a fat storage hormone. Let me tell you what that means. It means if insulin is circulating, your body is going to store that energy. As a matter of fact, it's like a guard at the door. If insulin is circulating, you cannot access the fat to burn it.

Wow. You can't. So no matter what you're doing out here in these streets, you can do 500 Tolerance. If insulin is at the door, you're not getting in. You're not going to get the birth.

You're going to put that in there too. Does that make sense to you? Yes. When that clicked for me and I understood, I remember going, "Oh." When I understood, I understood the power of intermittent fasting. I understood the power. I'm a person, I have walked, I have walked at a whole bunch of pounds and I've walked at a little bitty pounds.

In these hips, we're walking in it. I have walked the whole day.

When I understood that I had to do more than that, I had to do some resistance training so that I could get some lean muscle mass so that I could change things metabolically. I understood that I had to use all of the things. So I have taken the medicines or used the medicines as well, but after much research so that I understood. So when I got all of the other things going, it just worked. That's great. And so that's what I'm trying to get other people, because I understand the impact of having too much weight on your body. I also understand for me, because my mission and what I am here to do is to help people be healthier. Yeah. Exhibit that. What I look like meant everything. My message hadn't changed that much.— but now people hear me. They couldn't hear me because they saw me. One of my patients told me one time, and she said, she came in for knee pain, and she said, "I was talking to my sister, and my sister told me, 'How you gonna tell me to lose weight and you are the size that you are?'" Now, I should have asked her to leave, but I didn't because, you know, I was raised well. And so I told her, I said, "Well, if I was in your office talking about my knees, then you could tell me to lose weight, but I'm I'm not.

I know why my knees are hurting.

I did. I knew why my knees were hurting. And so being able to live it and go through it, it took me 2 years to lose 100 pounds.

They always say don't rush to lose it.

You cannot. You cannot. So I think that's important that I'm honest about it. And at first it was. It made me sad that I had 100 pounds to lose because I didn't always have 100 pounds to lose. That was coming, cheerleader. We discussed it. But all of the things happened in life, like for everybody else. And I thought I was eating healthy. I thought I was doing the right stuff, but I was eating all the time. That every 2 hours eating is a fantasy. You should not eat every 2 hours.

We've been told to do that too.

I know. And it's not a real thing. Science does not support it. And so that's how we really got overweight. The whole everybody with the bad food and the processed food and eating every 2 hours because I was faithful to my every 2 hours.

So is intermittent fasting, and I know that that's a whole deep topic, but But is the idea of it that because of the restriction that the insulin is lowered? You give the insulin enough time to get—

Your blood sugar drops. And when the blood sugar drops, so does the insulin. And now you can access that extra energy and use it. We were created to intermittent fast. We used to have to hot— Yes. We had to hot fast. Fast for our stuff. We had to— most religion— religions have fasting as part of their worship. We were meant to do that. And so it is, uh, you have to know how to do it and do it properly. And but it really— it— I think it's one of the things that's really leading us out of this just darkness we've been in. And our babies are overweight. Our babies are overweight because We sending snacks to school.

Or getting in the Chick-fil-A line because Chick-fil-A is better than— Yeah, but what? It's better than McDonald's. I know. It's God's chicken. But what? With the lifted 50 chemicals.

But they don't stop between school and dinner. Yeah. They are not. Our parents wouldn't even let us eat snacks before dinner.

We sure didn't.

Put that down. You are going to ruin your dinner. So good.

So very good. You have, uh, I, I, the thing I love the most about you is that you are, you have always been very approachable, very, um, clear and direct, kind, loving, but no nonsense. And watching you illustrate even more so as I see you on the stages, which you've always been on, but social media has been fun to watch. I know your Trim and Thrive class, we've mentioned that a few times. The next one starts in April. Starts in April. And you only take 100 people because you want to be able to see and touch. But that's, uh, you can go to askdrjill.net if you want to learn more about Dr. Jill and listen to her podcast and also sign up for that, sign up for that class. But watching you be in this position that social media gives us to say, okay, so this is how I'm doing it, you know. You have the ability to be the doctor and have the knowledge and tell us the things we need to hear. But you also have done the work of being in the trenches. And so, that makes me go, "Okay, she's telling me what to do, but she's showing me what to do." And she's showing me also what has worked for her, you know. And that is super helpful. If you could, just based on our conversation, say any one closing word of wisdom, encouragement, or no nonsense, uh, this is what Dr.

Jill is telling y'all, what would that be? I, um, first of all, thank you for all of that. This has been so much fun. It's been so much fun. Um, I think what I want to say to people who are struggling with their weight, I think that's an important population, to say to them, it's not your fault. Mm, stop thinking it's your fault. It's really not your fault. So it's not your fault, and it is okay if you let somebody help you. Mm. Stop beating yourself up. That's what I want to say. The other thing that I'd like to say to everybody, listen, when health is gone, mm, it is so difficult to get it back.

Mm-hmm.

As opposed to focusing on the, "Oh, let's pray for recovery," let's pray to stay well. Because everything we accomplish on this earth, we have to accomplish in these bodies. It's our transportation. Yeah. It's everything. And we cannot treat this gift as though it means nothing. It is a gift. And so we really have to treat it that way. And I think that's important. And please stop blaming yourself because we just beat ourselves up. We do. And it's not your fault. We do.

You said being a doctor is your calling. And this is one other thing that I feel that ask you, but in all of the things that you can do as a doctor and all the people that you can touch, if you had to boil it down to defining your calling in an outcome. So if right now or 10 years from now or 20 years from now, Dr. Jill was a doctor who, or Dr. Jill was a person who, what is kind of the spine of your calling inside of this calling of medicine that you have on your life? Wow.

Who loved us enough to keep us from burying our fathers too soon. And let me tell you what that means. My grandfather, I adored. I told you he was the one who told me I could be a doctor. Yeah. Yeah. My grandfather died of a massive stroke stroke when I was 10 years old. He was 46. Mm. So I missed him walking me down the aisle. I missed him giving me his knowledge. I missed all of those things because he was taken far too soon. So if I can do something to help little girls have their daddies a little bit longer,— it changes everything. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing.

You're amazing. Thank you.

Thank you for coming, girl. I love it. I do. Thank you so much for having me.

You're so welcome.